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RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


Photo:  Elliott  &  Fry. 


Richard  Green  Moulton, 

LL.D.  (Cantab.),  Ph.D.  (Penna.), 


PROFESSOR  OF  LITERARY  THEORY  AND  INTER¬ 
PRETATION  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 


A  MEMOIR 

BY 

HIS  NEPHEW 

W.  FIDDIAN  MOULTON 


WITH  A  FOREWORD 

BY 

SIR  MICHAEL  E.  SADLER,  K.C.S.I.,  C.B.,  LL.D.,  Litt.D. 

Master  of  University  College,  Oxford. 


Jlrte  fjark 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Fust  Edition,  192b. 


Made  and  printed  in  Great  Britain 
by  Mackays  Ltd.,  Chatham 


°1 


CONTENTS 


Chap 

Introduction  .... 

Page 

7 

I. 

Early  Days  .... 

11 

II. 

University  Extension  . 

.  19 

III. 

The  Study  of  Literature 

•  33 

IV. 

The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible 

•  59 

V. 

First  Contact  with  America 

•  74 

VI. 

Chicago  ...... 

.  87 

VII. 

A  Strenuous  Ministry  . 

100 

VIII. 

Eventide . 

.  123 

Appendix  I.  ..... 

•  131 

Syllabus  of  Lecture  at  Belper  on  the 
University  Extension  Movement 


Appendix  II . 136 

The  Department  of  General  Literature  in 
the  University  of  Chicago 

Appendix  III.  .......  144 

Titles  of  Other  Courses  given  by  Professor 
Moulton  in  the  University 

Books  by  Richard  Green  Moulton  .  .146 


4 


it 


INTRODUCTION 

Richard  Green  Moulton  was  a  missionary  of  culture, 
an  apostle  of  adult  education.  He  spent  his  life  in  trying 
to  make  a  new  background  to  the  minds  of  men  and 
women  whose  lot  in  life  had  fallen  at  a  time  of  emigration 
from  settled  habits  of  thought  to  regions  of  unrest. 

Behind  him  lay  four  generations  of  the  Methodist 
ministry.  Itinerancy  was  in  his  blood.  In  the  service  of 
Universities  he  did  what  his  forbears  had  done  in  the 
service  of  the  Wesleyan  Connexion.  With  unselfish  ardour 
and  with  cheerful  courage  he  sowed  seed  which,  both  in 
England  and  in  the  United  States,  has  grown  to  harvest. 
Like  Wordsworth’s  seafaring  brother,  Moulton  was  born 
with  a  trust  which  he  did  not  fail  to  comprehend.  Hence 
he  settled  down  to  a  life  of  unsettlement.  Nearly 
fifty  years  ago  we  in  the  West  Riding  asked  him  whether 
his  life  of  almost  incessant  winter  travel  from  town  to  town 
was  not  wearying  and  distasteful.  I  remember  the  spirit 
with  which  he  answered  us.  ‘  When  I  have  been  for  a  few 
hours  in  a  new  lodging,  I  feel  that  it  is  my  home.' 

Moulton  gave  much  of  his  life  to  University  Extension.  He 
served  his  cause  with  fire  and  faith.  He  sprang  from  a  fine 
stock.  The  quality  of  mind  and  character  which  one  of  his 
brothers  showed  in  the  service  of  science  and  law,  which 
a  second  brother  showed  in  Biblical  study  and  in  the 
governance  of  a  great  school,  which  a  third  showed  in 
missionary  statesmanship  in  the  South  Seas,  Richard 
Moulton  displayed  as  a  pioneer  and  upholder  of  the  ideas 

7 


A  q  i  g  rz  k 

-*■  'O  JL  O  u  "J 


8 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


of  University  Extension.  What,  we  may  ask,  was  there 
in  those  ideas  which  gave  momentum  to  the  labours  of 
his  life  ? 

Nearly  sixty  years  ago  a  young  Scot,  James  Stuart  of 
Balgonie,  confided  to  his  mother  the  plans  which  he 
cherished  for  his  career.  He  had  taken  his  degree  at 
Cambridge  a  few  months  before.  Ever  afterwards  this 
talk  stood  out  particularly  in  his  memory  and  in  hers. 

‘  I  described  to  her  the  great  difference  that  there  seemed 
to  me  to  be  between  the  education  in  England  and  in 
Scotland.  In  the  former  place  there  were  practically  no 
lectures  of  the  kind  given  by  the  professors  in  St.  Andrew’s, 
and  the  opportunities  for  University  Education  were  very 
much  less  wide-spread  than  in  Scotland.  I  told  her  that 
I  thought  of  staying  at  the  University  (at  Cambridge,  in 
Trinity)  and  of  endeavouring  to  accomplish  two  things  : 
first,  to  make  the  University  lectures  generally  open  to  all 
Colleges,  and  of  a  more  interesting  type  ;  second,  to  estab¬ 
lish  a  sort  of  peripatetic  University,  the  professors  of 
which  would  circulate  among  the  big  towns  and  thus  give 
a  wider  opportunity  for  receiving  such  teaching.  ...  It 
took  about  ten  years  to  accomplish  these  two  objects, 
but  my  mother  often  referred  in  after-years  to  the 
general  correctness  of  the  anticipations  of  which  I  then 
told  her.’ 

James  Stuart  was  the  father  of  the  activities  of 
University  Extension  teaching.  He  invented,  stumbled 
on,  its  characteristic  method — the  lecture  followed  (or 
prefaced)  by  the  class  and  illustrated  by  a  syllabus.  His 
animated  leadership  drew  young  men  to  his  banner.  The 
first  were  V.  H.  Stanton,  T.  O.  Harding,  E.  B.  Birks. 
Hard  on  their  heels  were  W.  Moore  Ede,  T.  J.  Lawrence, 
W.  Cunningham,  J.  E.  Symes,  R.  D.  Roberts,  R.  G. 
Moulton.  Thus  in  1874  Moulton  started  his  life’s  work 
by  giving  courses  of  University  Extension  lectures,  under 


INTRODUCTION 


9 


the  authority  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  at  Derby, 
Leicester,  and  Nottingham.  His  itinerancy  had  begun. 
It  was  a  few  years  after  that  that  we  got  to  know  him  at 
Barnsley  in  Yorkshire.  Nearly  half  a  century  has  passed, 
but  my  memory  of  his  influence  has  not  faded.  He  was 
like  a  gardener  bringing  water  to  a  thirsty  garden.  His 
pupils  were  but  a  handful.  But  he  opened  windows  in 
their  minds.  He  made  them  love  poetry  more.  He 
shared  their  love  of  music.  He  showed  them  new  stan¬ 
dards  of  scholarship.  He  made  an  isolated  group  of  book- 
lovers  feel  companionship  with  groups  elsewhere.  More 
than  this,  he  made  them  grateful  to  Cambridge,  conscious 
of  an  ancient  University  tradition  which  had  become 
hospitable  to  them  and  friendly,  though  remote. 

There  came  a  time  in  the  early  history  of  University 
Extension  when  the  movement  seemed  in  danger  of 
flagging.  Moulton  and  Roberts  upheld  it.  Their  example 
was  not  without  influence  in  Oxford,  where  William  Sewell 
a  generation  earlier  had  seen,  as  had  Lord  Arthur  Hervey 
at  Cambridge,  what  the  extension  of  University  teaching 
might  do  for  England.  At  Oxford,  as  at  Cambridge,  the 
movement  was  strong  in  friends  :  at  Cambridge,  besides 
James  Stuart,  there  were  Henry  Sidgwick  and  G.  F. 
Browne  :  at  Oxford,  besides  Benjamin  Jowett,  were  T.  H. 
Green,  Arnold  Toynbee,  and  Arthur  Acland.  But  more 
men  of  Moulton’s  mark  were  needed  for  the  teaching  front. 
Stuart’s  fervour,  Browne’s  business  head,  Jowett’s  daring, 
Acland’s  insight  rallied  new  recruits.  What  Cambridge 
University  Extension  had  found  in  Moulton  and  in 
Roberts,  Oxford  found  in  Hudson  Shaw,  in  Halford 
Mackinder,  in  J.  A.  R.  Marriott,  in  E.  L.  S.  Horsburgh. 
And  at  Leeds,  Liverpool,  Sheffield,  Bristol,  Nottingham, 
Reading,  and  Exeter  new  University  Colleges  consolidated 
what  University  Extension  had  helped  to  begin. 

Sir  Joshua  Fitch  used  to  tell  a  story  about  Dean  Stanley 


10 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


and  Dr.  Arnold,  of  Rugby.  Stanley  was  asked  whether 
he  had  learnt  much  from  Arnold’s  teaching  in  the  Sixth. 
He  drew  a  notebook  from  his  pocket  and  said  :  ‘  All  I  got 
from  Dr.  Arnold  in  the  way  of  direct  instruction  could  be 
written  in  this  little  book.’  But  Arnold  coloured  Stanley’s 
conscience  and  convictions.  Moulton,  without  Arnold’s 
fierce  earnestness  in  theology  and  politics,  had  something 
of  his  power  to  make  a  new  atmosphere  in  his  pupils’ 
minds.  He  was  infectious,  radiant,  magnetic.  He  was 
part  preacher,  part  actor,  part  troubadour.  He  glowed 
with  love  of  the  English  Bible,  of  Greek  tragedy,  of  Shake¬ 
speare,  of  Goethe,  and  we  who  heard  him  recite  what  he 
loved,  warmed  ourselves  at  his  fire. 

M.  E.  SADLER. 

University  College,  Oxford, 

June,  1926. 


CHAPTER  I. 


Early  Days. 

It  was  on  the  fifth  of  May,  1849,  that  Richard  Green 
Moulton  first  saw  the  light,  in  the  Wesleyan  Methodist 
manse  just  a  few  yards  off  Fishergate  in  Preston,  where 
his  father,  the  Rev.  James  Egan  Moulton,  was  Super¬ 
intendent  minister  of  the  circuit.  Richard  was  the 
youngest  of  the  six  children  of  his  parents,  four  boys  and 
two  girls,  a  gap  of  fourteen  years  separating  him  from  the 
eldest,  William  Fiddian,  the  future  Head  Master  of  the 
Leys  School,  Cambridge.  The  family  history  may  be 
said  to  begin  with  John  Bake  well,  the  writer  of  the  well- 
known  hymn,  the  property  of  all  the  Churches  over  the 
face  of  the  earth,  *  Hail,  Thou  once  despised  Jesus  ! ' 
Starting  as  an  evangelist  in  his  native  county  of  Derby¬ 
shire,  he  afterwards  opened  a  school  in  Greenwich,  where 
he  had  as  one  of  his  assistant  masters  Mr.  James  Egan  of 
Limerick,  who  subsequently  received  an  LL.D.  degree  at 
Dublin,  and  also  the  gold  medal  of  a  learned  society  for 
a  dissertation  upon  the  best  method  of  teaching  Greek. 
Association  in  educational  work  led  to  the  awakening  of  a 
strong  attachment  between  Mr.  Egan  and  Mr.  Bakewell’s 
clever  daughter  Maria,  who  possessed  a  remarkable 
knowledge  of  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew.  On  one  of  the 
Rev.  John  Wesley’s  frequent  visits  to  his  friend’s  house, 
he  saw  readily  enough  how  things  stood  between  these 
brilliant  young  people,  and  he  lost  no  time  in  urging  upon 
Mr.  Bakewell  certain  plans  for  the  furtherance  of  the 


12 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


Lord’s  work — and,  incidentally,  of  the  interests  of  this 
gifted  couple.  '  John,’  said  Wesley,  '  let  the  young 
people  marry,  hand  over  the  school  to  them  ;  and  you  go 
and  preach  the  gospel.’  That  dominating  personality 
bore  an  almost  unchallenged  sway  in  that  house.  John 
Bakewell  assented  ;  and  the  young  people,  nothing  loth, 
assented  too,  Mr.  Wesle3'  himself  performing  the  ceremony. 
John  Bakewell  lived  to  the  ripe  age  of  ninety-eight, 
retaining  all  his  faculties  to  the  very  last. 

The  Egans  had  a  large  family,  but  only  two  of  the 
children  call  for  mention  here.  One  married  the  Rev. 
William  Moulton,  the  grandfather  of  the  subject  of  this 
memoir,  who  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  Egans’  house 
by  reason  of  the  fact  that  it  was  in  the  ‘  London  Circuit '  1 
Another  daughter,  who  remained  unmarried,  settled  in 
Worcester  and  opened  there  a  preparatory  school  for 
boys,  whither,  at  a  very  early  age,  the  eldest  brother  of 
Richard  Green  Moulton  went  to  receive  his  first  initiation 
into  scholarship  at  the  hands  of  his  great-aunt.  She  was 
a  woman  of  great  mental  activity  and  width  of  reading, 
and  an  excellent  classical  scholar,  whilst  her  physical 
vitality  must  have  been  extraordinary,  for,  after  falling 
downstairs  and  breaking  her  thigh  at  the  age  of  over 
eighty,  she  lived  on  into  her  hundredth  year,  crippled, 
but  retaining  her  faculties  to  the  last,  even  as  her  grand¬ 
father  had  done. 

William  Moulton’s  family  was  a  large  one — fifteen  in 
all — though  six  died  either  in  childhood  or  before  they 
had  grown  up.  The  eldest  lad,  William,  was  a  boy  of 
great  promise,  and  was  head  boy  of  Woodhouse  Grove 
School — then  a  school  for  the  sons  of  Wesleyan  ministers 
— but  died  at  sixteen.  James  Egan  Moulton,  the  father 
of  the  remarkable  quartet  of  brothers,  early  showed  the 
attainments  which  had  characterized  those  who  came 
before  him.  From  eight  to  fifteen  he  was  at  Kingswood 


EARLY  DAYS 


13 


School — also  a  school  for  sons  of  Wesleyan  ministers — 
and  his  name  appears  the  first  in  the  first  prize  list  of  the 
school.  From  fifteen  to  twenty-two  he  remained  there 
as  a  master — a  master  at  fifteen  ! — until  he  entered  the 
Wesleyan  Methodist  ministry.  As  a  teacher  he  seems  to 
have  had  a  singular  gift  for  making  his  subjects  interesting 
— a  gift  which  reappears  in  his  sons,  and  notably  in  R.  G. 
Moulton.  Moreover,  he  was  remarkable  both  for  the 
thoroughness  of  his  knowledge  and  for  his  breadth.  He 
was  a  mathematician  above  the  average  :  he  had  an 
extensive  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  and  he 
'  could  read  Hebrew  like  a  Jew.’ 

But  no  estimate  of  the  formative  influences  in  the  life 
of  R.  G.  Moulton,  as  of  his  three  brothers,  would  be 
adequate  without  some  tribute  to  his  mother,  Catherine 
Fiddian,  daughter  of  Mr.  William  Fiddian,  a  brass  founder 
in  Birmingham.  She  and  her  husband  formed  a  remark¬ 
able  pair ;  for,  great  as  were  his  attainments  and 
intellectual  powers,  she  was  quite  his  equal,  though  her 
gifts  had  the  distinctive  colouring  of  a  woman’s  nature. 
She  had  a  fine  mind,  and  great  powers  of  conversation 
when  she  chose  to  use  them,  but  she  was  a  thorough 
woman,  according  to  the  ideal  of  eighty  years  ago.  She  went 
as  near  to  worshipping  her  husband  as  so  saintly  a  woman 
could  go,  and  her  tender  love  for  her  children,  her  con¬ 
siderateness,  her  strong,  wise  counsel,  left  an  indelible 
impression  upon  the  minds  and  hearts  of  those  who  knew 
her  best. 

It  was  from  such  a  stock  that  R.  G.  Moulton  sprang. 
His  mother  died  when  he  was  only  six  years  old,  and  in 
1857  his  father  married,  in  Guernsey,  Henriette  Bysson 
Taylor,  a  lady  of  Huguenot  descent,  who  had  been  brought 
up  in  France.  That  he  owed  a  great  deal  to  this  lady 
Richard  always  acknowledged,  and  the  devotion  to  her  of 
the  whole  family  up  to  her  death  at  an  advanced  age  in 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


*4 

1890 — almost  twenty-five  years  after  the  death  of  her 
husband — was  very  beautiful.  Amid  such  conditions  he 
grew  up;  and  if  these  things  have  been  stressed,  it  is 
because  they  bore  so  directly  upon  the  foundation  of  his 
character,  his  activities,  and  his  tastes. 

He  was  a  frail  child,  and  few  would  have  ventured  to 
predict  for  him  any  future  marked  by  distinction,  or  even 
moderate  success,  on  that  very  ground.  One  phase  of  his 
childhood  days  may  be  noted  here,  because  it  is  so  inter¬ 
esting  an  anticipation  of  what  became  afterwards  his  most 
outstanding  achievement  in  respect  of  the  presentation  of 
literature.  The  frailty  of  his  health  resulted  in  his  being 
left  much  to  himself  when  other  boys  would  join  in  the 
co-operative  sport  of  the  playground  :  but  he  had  his  own 
games,  into  which  he  needed  not  to  ask  any  to  enter. 
For  hours  he  would  lie  on  the  floor  in  front  of  the  fire,  and 
carry  on  a  wonderful  game  of  make-believe  in  which  he 
would  welcome  visitors,  and  conduct  conversation  in 
character  with  them,  adapting  his  voice,  gestures,  and 
subject-matter  to  the  visitor  he  was  impersonating  at 
the  time.  Those  who,  thirty  or  forty  years  later,  heard 
him  give  his  Interpretative  Recitals,  whether  of  Greek 
Tragedy  or  of  Bible  story,  will  recognize  that  the  child 
was  but  the  father  of  the  man,  and  that  the  instinct  for 
dramatic  impersonation  manifested  itself  uncommonly 
early. 

As  he  grew  older  his  health  improved,  and  after  a  year 
at  Mr.  Rush’s  School  (Clevedon  College)  at  Northampton, 
he  went  to  New  Kingswood  School,  Bath,  where  he  was 
conspicuously  successful,  and,  like  his  brother  John,1 
became  head  boy.  Like  him  also,  he  did  exceedingly  well 
in  the  Oxford  Local  Examinations.  He  commenced  his 
educational  career  when  at  the  early  age  of  sixteen  and 
a  half  he  went — first  as  an  ‘  usher  ’ — to  Clevedon  College 

1  Afterwards  the  Right  Hon.  Lord  Moulton  of  Bank. 


EARLY  DAYS 


15 

again.  While  there,  he  went  in  for  more  examinations, 
including  the  London  Matriculation,  in  which  his  name 
headed  the  honours  list  in  1867,  and  he  obtained  a  £30 
scholarship.  From  Clevedon  College  he  went  as  an 
assistant  master  to  the  private  school  of  Mr.  Frederick 
Conquest  at  Biggleswade,  preparing  at  the  same  time  for 
the  London  University  B.A.  Examination.  In  later  life 
R.  G.  Moulton  used  to  relate  his  experiences  in  connexion 
with  that  examination  in  1869  as  illustrating  sopie  of  the 
weaknesses  of  any  system  which  relies  solely  upon  such 
tests.  It  was  considered  so  certain  that  Moulton  would 
win  the  £30  scholarship  that  two  candidates  had  with¬ 
drawn  in  order  to  have  a  chance  another  year.  He  had 
to  take  two  examinations  with  an  interval  of  a  week 
between  the  two.  During  that  week  a  severe  attack  of 
mumps  developed,  and  when  the  time  came  for  the 
second  examination  he  was  in  a  very  high  fever  !  The 
results  were  interesting :  (1)  Having  taken  the  first 

examination,  he  was  debarred  from  taking  the  second  at 
a  later  time ;  (2)  He  did  not  obtain  the  scholarship  ; 
(3)  The  scholarship  was  not  awarded  to  anyone  ;  (4)  R.  G. 
Moulton  remained  on  the  lists  of  the  London  University 
as  a  pass  B.A.  ! 

He  remained  with  Mr.  Conquest  until  he  went  up  to 
Cambridge  with  a  Classical  Scholarship  to  Christ’s  College, 
taking  his  degree  in  Classics  in  1874. 

In  those  years  at  Cambridge,  which  had  been  the  family 
home  since  1864,  his  activities  naturally  included  much 
besides  preparation  for  the  Classical  tripos.  One  thing 
worth  noting  is  connected  with  the  wonderful  power  he 
manifested  later  of  taking  in  a  dramatic  work  as  a  whole, 
making  it  absolutely  his  own,  and  then  presenting  it  as  a 
clear  unity  in  an  '  Interpretative  Recital.’  In  a  period  of 
relaxation  after  five  o’clock  ‘  hall,’  he  would  read  through 
at  a  sitting  an  English  drama.  This  gave  him  valuable 


1 6  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

training  in  grasping  dramatic  structure — not  detailed 
memory  of  plays,  but  a  '  composite  photograph  ’  of 
Elizabethan  drama,  which  was  of  great  assistance  to  him 
during  the  earlier  years  of  his  lecturing  career. 

Reference  also  may  fittingly  be  made  here  to  his  musical 
tastes  and  gifts,  for  they  not  only  afforded  rich  embellish¬ 
ment  to  his  life  but  unquestionably  contributed  to  the 
body  of  his  literary  thinking  at  a  later  stage.  Anyone 
who  heard  him  give  his  Interpretative  Recital,  ‘  The 
Rhapsody  of  Zion  Redeemed,’  with  the  magnificent 
Wagner  illustration,  would  not  need  to  be  told  that  he 
was  a  musician  to  his  finger-tips.  It  was,  moreover,  a 
period  of  notable  musical  awakening  in  Cambridge. 
In  succession  to  Dr.  J.  L.  Hopkins  in  1873  a  young 
undergraduate  named  Charles  Villiers  Stanford  had  been 
appointed  organist  at  Trinity  College,  the  appointment 
being  coupled  with  the  considerate  concession  that  he 
should  be  allowed  to  pursue  his  musical  studies  in  Germany 
during  the  next  two  years.  It  has  seldom  been  granted 
to  a  man  to  influence  the  artistic  life  of  a  great  and 
important  centre  as  Villiers  Stanford  influenced  Cambridge 
in  the  succeeding  period  up  to  1890.  The  University 
Musical  Society  had  been  in  existence  since  1844,  but  it 
was  not  until  Stanford  secured  the  admission  of  ladies  as 
performing  members  ’  that  the  society  was  enabled  to 
enter  upon  what  was  destined  to  be  a  career  of  great 
distinction  in  the  musical  world.  R.  G.  Moulton  was 
among  the  prominent  members  of  the  Society,  being  at 
one  time  Secretary,  and  upon  him  those  early  years  of  the 
Stanford  regime  left  a  deep  impression.  One  musical 
event  was  probably  connected  with  some  far-reaching 
developments  of  his  future  career.  In  1873  Stanford  was 
present  at  the  Schumann  Festival  at  Bonn,  and  the  result 
of  the  impact  of  that  composer’s  rich  and  picturesque 
music  upon  the  young  enthusiast  was  speedily  seen  in  the 


EARLY  DAYS 


17 


programmes  of  the  C.U.M.S.  Among  other  notable 
productions  the  Society  had  the  credit  of  giving  the  first 
English  performance  of  the  Faust  music  (1876).  R.  G. 
Moulton  was  in  the  chorus  of  this  work,  and  retained  a 
very  high  opinion  of  it,  often  in  his  earlier  years  singing 
the  superb  bass  solo  ‘  Thou,  O  purest,  holiest.’  When 
we  realize  that  within  a  few  years  he  was  making  a 
tremendous  success  with  his  Faust  lectures,  it  is  easy  to 
imagine  that  the  rehearsing  of  that  work  in  1876  may 
have  been  an  important  factor  in  awakening  his  sense  of 
the  literary  possibilities  of  the  various  presentations  of 
the  Faust  legend.  In  University  Extension  teaching  if 
the  length  of  the  course  would  permit,  and  always  in 
University  classes,  his  treatment  of  this  whole  subject — 
it  was  one  of  his  ‘  Five  Literary  Bibles  ’ — included,  along 
with  the  four  great  literary  versions,  some  consideration 
of  the  outstanding  musical  works  inspired  by  the  Faust 
story.  He  was  interested  in  them  all,  from  Spohr  to 
Mahler’s  Eighth  Symphony — ‘  The  Symphony  of  a 
Thousand  ’ — three  fine  performances  of  which  he  heard 
in  Chicago  within  five  days  !  Like  his  brothers  William 
and  Egan,  he  was  an  enthusiastic  organist  from  a  very 
early  age,  and  for  some  years  he  played  the  organ  at 
Hobson  Street  Chapel  whenever  he  was  in  Cambridge. 
It  is  not  always  safe  to  trust  the  validity  of  boyish 
estimates  and  enthusiasms,  but  there  remains  with  me  a 
vivid  sense  of  how  his  music  impressed  us  all  at  that  time 
as  being  most  convincing  and  most  potent  in  generating 
enthusiasm  among  others.  Of  course,  by  the  time  when 
I  heard  him  most,  his  voice — although  its  essentially 
musical  quality  remained — had  begun  to  lose  power  and 
flexibility ;  but  his  style,  forcefulness,  and  dramatic 
power  were  remarkable  There  stands  out  with  me  a 
Sunday  morning  at  Oban  in  1885,  when,  after  breakfast, 
he  sat  down  and  sang  a  song  which  was  almost  equally 
B 


r8  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

impressive  for  the  movement  of  its  melody  and  the  colour 
of  its  accompaniment.  It  thrilled  us  all,  and  after  futile 
guesses  had  been  made  as  to  the  composer — Schumann 
being  the  favourite — we  were  interested  to  learn  that  it 
was  a  setting  of  John  Ellerton’s  '  O  to  love  Thee  more  and 
more  ’  by  Dr.  John  Naylor,  afterwards  organist  of  York 
Minster,  who  had  been  among  the  most  eager  and  helpful 
supporters  of  University  Extension  work  in  Scarborough 
when  R.  G.  Moulton  lectured  there, 


CHAPTER  II. 


University  Extension. 

To  so  great  a  degree  was  R.  G.  Moulton's  career  identified 
with  the  University  Extension  Movement  that  it  would  be 
futile  to  launch  out  into  any  account  of  his  life-work 
without  indicating  in  some  degree  the  early  history  of 
that  enterprise,  which,  first  in  England  and  then  America, 
has  done  so  much  for  the  spread  of  education,  enabling 
the  Universities  to  give  to  the  outside  world  in  some 
measure  the  riches  of  culture  which  had  hitherto  been 
accessible  only  to  those  within  their  walls.  The  initiation 
of  the  movement  synchronized  with  the  close  of  R.  G. 
Moulton's  three  years  at  Cambridge,  when  naturally  he 
was  on  the  look-out  for  a  sphere  of  activity.  Moreover, 
the  moving  spirit  in  the  project  was,  as  we  shall  see  directly, 
James  Stuart,  afterwards  Professor  of  Engineering  at 
Cambridge  and  for  several  years  a  Member  of  Parliament. 
Stuart  was  an  intimate  friend  of  John  Fletcher  Moulton, 
Richard's  elder  brother,  who  was  Senior  Wrangler  in  1868 
and  was  elected  to  a  fellowship  at  Christ’s  College  shortly 
after  :  and  through  that  friendship  Stuart  must  have 
come  into  touch  with  the  younger  brother  as  well.  But 
reports  reaching  him  of  notable  speeches  at  the  ‘  Union,' 
in  which  subjects  had  been  powerfully  presented,  he  was 
led  to  consider  more  closely  this  young  man,  who  was 
destined  to  mean  so  much  to  the  movement  during  the 
next  twenty-five  years. 

The  University  Extension  Movement  was  the  response 


19 


20 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


to  the  demand  which  came  from  a  generation  vastly 
different  from  our  own  ;  but  it  may  be  claimed  with  justice 
that  in  the  achieving  of  the  new  order  of  things  University 
Extension  played  no  small  part.  When  we  go  back  to 
the  early  seventies  of  the  nineteenth  century  we  are  going 
into  a  period  when  the  word  '  University  ’  meant  for 
England  only  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  for  London  did  not 
then  exist  as  a  teaching  University,  and  the  provincial 
universities  had  not  as  yet  come  into  being.  It  must  be 
admitted  that  the  two  historic  universities  had  lived  very 
much  within  their  own  confines ;  and  although  leavening 
thought  and  opinion  through  the  men  they  sent  forth, 
they  cannot  be  said  to  have  recognized  any  corporate 
obligation  to  share  with  the  world  outside  the  many  good 
things  that  had  come  their  way.  But  the  years  in  the 
middle  of  last  century  were  so  fully  charged  with  the 
spirit  of  change  that  the  ancient  seats  of  learning  could 
not  have  remained  insensible  to  it  even  had  they  so 
desired.  Since  the  year  1845  efforts  had  been  made  at 
intervals  to  make  University  advantages  more  widely 
available.  These  included  an  attempt  ‘  to  make  possible 
the  admission  of  poorer  men  to  the  University  ' ;  the 
suggestion  ‘  that  University  funds  might  justly  and 
serviceably  be  employed  for  the  maintenance  of  Professors 
in  Manchester  and  Birmingham  !  ' ;  and  a  suggestion  for 
*  supplying  the  literary,  scientific,  and  Mechanics’  Institutes 
of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  with  lecturers  from  the 
Universities.’ 

Ample  evidence  is  to  be  found  that  there  was  at  that 
period  a  growing  desire  for  educational  advantages  moving 
in  the  country,  and  an  increasing  sense  of  obligation  in  the 
universities  with  reference  to  the  meeting  of  those  desires. 
Out  of  these  there  comes  the  initiation  of  the  movement 
itself  and  the  activities  of  Mr.  James  Stuart — well  known  as 
Professor  Stuart,  M.P. — in  the  matter.  For  it  was  Mr. 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 


21 


Stuart  more  than  anyone  else  who  brought  to  fruition  ideas 
which  had  been  expressed  in  one  form  or  other  by  so 
many.  In  his  volume  of  reminiscences  he  tells  of  how, 
just  after  taking  his  degree  in  1865,  he  told  his  mother 
that  he  wished  to  remain  up  at  Cambridge  so  that  he 
might  try  to  achieve  two  things :  ‘first,  to  make  the 
University  lectures  generally  open  to  all  the  Colleges  ; 
and  second,  to  establish  a  sort  of  peripatetic  University, 
the  professors  of  which  would  circulate  among  the  big 
towns,  and  thus  give  a  wider  opportunity  for  receiving 
such  teaching.’  Within  a  couple  of  years  the  occasion 
presented  itself  for  experimenting  in  regard  to  the  second 
object,  for  in  the  summer  of  1867  he  was  approached  by 
an  association  known  as  the  ‘  North  of  England  Council 
for  promoting  the  Higher  Education  of  Women,’  to  give 
lectures  to  women  during  the  autumn  in  Manchester, 
Liverpool,  Sheffield,  and  Leeds.  The  Council  was  rich 
in  women  of  vision  and  high  purpose,  for  the  President 
was  Mrs.  Josephine  Butler,  the  Secretary  Miss  A.  J. 
Clough,  afterwards  Principal  of  Newnham,  and  on  the 
Council  as  consultative  members  were  Mr.  James  Bryce 
and  Mr.  Joshua  Fitch,  the  Inspector  of  Schools.  The 
original  proposal  was  that  Mr.  Stuart  should  lecture  on 
the  theory  and  methods  of  education  ;  but  he  demurred 
on  the  ground  that  he  considered  that  something  specific 
would  serve  better  than  an  abstract  subject,  and  ulti¬ 
mately  it  was  arranged  that  he  should  give  a  course  of 
lectures  in  each  place  on  the  History  of  Astronomy.  The 
same  winter  his  lecture  courses  at  Crewe  and  Rochdale 
enabled  him  still  further  to  work  out  his  experiment  of  a 
peripatetic  University,  and  it  is  most  interesting  to  see 
him  initiating  in  those  days  of  experiment  the  very 
procedure  which  came  to  be  most  characteristic  of  Uni¬ 
versity  Extension  in  a  few  years’  time.  ‘  I  was  anxious,’  he 
says,  '  to  make  the  lectures  as  educational  as  possible, 


22 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


and,  in  consequence,  at  the  first  lecture  I  advised  every 
pupil  to  make  notes  after  each  lecture,  in  the  form  of  a 
syllabus  or  string  of  sentences,  and  I  produced  a  syllabus 
of  the  first  lecture  in  print,  which  I  distributed,  indicating 
the  sort  of  thing  which  I  thought  they  might  expand. 
This  was  given  to  them  at  the  end  of  the  lecture,  but 
subsequently  I  made  it  a  good  deal  shorter,  and  gave  it 
at  the  beginning,  as  I  found  it  assisted  them  to  follow  the 
lecture.’  This  was  the  origin  of  the  syllabus  which  has 
always  accompanied  every  University  Extension  lecture. 
It  was  with  these  classes  for  women  that  Mr.  Stuart 
initiated  another  element  which  has  become  so  integral 
an  element  in  University  Extension  operations — the 
paper  work  each  week  :  and  the  measure  of  keenness  is 
witnessed  by  the  fact  that  out  of  six  hundred  pupils,  three 
hundred  responded  to  his  invitation  to  send  in  answers 
to  his  questions.  And  if  the  syllabus  and  the  paper-work 
originated  with  the  women,  the  ‘  class  ’  originated  with 
the  men  at  Rochdale — and  all  by  accident.  ‘  One  day 
I  was  in  some  hurry  to  get  away  as  soon  as  the  lecture  was 
over,  and  I  asked  the  hall-keeper  to  allow  my  diagrams 
to  remain  hanging  till  my  return  next  week.  When  I 
came  back  he  said  to  me,  “  It  was  one  of  the  best  things 
you  ever  did  in  leaving  up  those  diagrams.  We  had  a 
meeting  of  our  members  (Co-operative  Society)  last  week, 
and  a  number  of  them  who  are  attending  your  lectures 
were  discussing  these  diagrams,  and  they  have  a  number 
of  questions  they  want  to  ask  you,  and  they  are  coming 
to-night  a  little  before  the  lecture  begins.”  About  twenty 
or  thirty  intelligent  artisans  met  me  about  half  an  hour 
before  the  lecture  began,  and  I  found  it  so  useful  a  half-hour 
that  during  the  remainder  of  the  course  I  always  had 
such  a  meeting.’ 

It  will  at  once  be  recognized  that  not  only  were  there 
present  in  these  tentative  schemes  all  the  germs  of 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 


23 


University  Extension,  but  also  that  it  was  all  to  the  good 
that  they  should  have  evolved  naturally  from  the 
exigencies  of  an  actual  situation,  rather  than  being  thought 
and  discussed  in  vacuo.  After  three  or  four  years  of  further 
experimenting  steps  were  taken  to  approach  the  univer¬ 
sities  with  a  view  to  their  taking  up  this  type  of  work. 
In  November,  1871,  on  the  initiative  of  Mr.  Stuart, 
memorials  were  sent  up  to  Cambridge  from  the  North  of 
England  Council  for  promoting  the  Higher  Education  of 
Women,  the  Crewe  Mechanics’  Institute,  the  Rochdale 
Equitable  Pioneers’  Society,  the  Mayor  and  other  inhabi¬ 
tants  of  Leeds,  and  a  little  later  from  Birmingham, 
Nottingham  and  other  Midland  towns,  asking  that  the 
University  would  take  in  hand  the  kind  of  lecturing  work 
in  the  provinces  which  had  been  done  in  a  tentative, 
individual  way  by  Mr.  Stuart ;  and  the  memorials  were 
followed  up  by  a  letter  of  his  own,  addressed  to  all  resident 
members  of  the  Senate. 

The  response  to  the  appeal  was  most  encouraging,  for 
within  a  few  months  a  Syndicate  was  formed  to  consider 
and  to  report  upon  the  issues  raised  by  the  memorialists  : 
and  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Stuart  as  secretary  to  the 
Syndicate  was  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  there  was  a 
whole-hearted  desire  to  approach  the  question  sympa¬ 
thetically.  Questionnaires  were  issued  to  Mechanics’ 
Institutes  and  other  local  bodies.  This  procedure  soon 
revealed  that  while  in  some  centres  there  was  an  eager 
demand  for  higher  education  along  such  lines,  in  the 
majority  of  centres  their  first  work  would  consist  in 
creating  the  demand  for  their  own  commodities.  This 
absence  of  a  universal  demand  constituted  no  argument 
against  the  project  :  quite  the  reverse,  for  it  was  their 
duty  and  privilege  to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  select  few, 
the  men  and  women  of  vision  who  are  to  be  found  to 
some  degree  in  every  centre  of  population,  and  to  help 


24 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


to  form  what  Sir  Michael  Sadler  aptly  styles  *  an 
educational  garrison  ’  in  their  own  town.  The  Syndi¬ 
cate  presented  their  Report  in  1873,  and  advocated 
making  an  experiment  by  sending  lecturers  from  the 
University  to  certain  towns,  the  Syndicate  remaining 
in  existence  for  the  purpose  of  watching  the  working  of 
the  plan  and  reporting  further  in  two  or  three  years’  time. 
In  October  of  that  year  University  Extension  was  inaugu¬ 
rated  by  a  great  meeting  at  Nottingham,  presided  over 
by  Lord  Carnarvon,  and  addressed  by  Mr.  G.  J.  Goschen, 
and  the  opening  courses  were  given  at  Nottingham, 
Derby,  and  Leicester  by  the  Revs.  V.  H.  Stanton  and 
E.  B.  Birks,  and  Mr.  O.  Harding,  all  three  of  them 
Fellows  of  Trinity.  In  the  following  term  further  courses 
were  arranged,  and  among  the  new  lecturers  were  R.^G. 
Moulton  and  W.  Moore  Ede,  now  Dean  of 4 Worcester > and 
the  only  surviving  member  of  the  early  band  of|Extension 
Lecturers.  ‘  The  sequel  was  that  before  the  experimental 
period  was  expired  the  Syndicate  reported  in  favour  of 
making  the  scheme  permanent ;  the  University  accepted 
the  Report,  and  handed  the  future  conduct  of  the  lectures 
to  the  Local  Examinations  Syndicate  by  Grace  of  the 
Senate.’1  Mr.  Stuart  remained  an  active  member  of  the 
Syndicate  until  he  left  Cambridge  in  1889,  having,  how¬ 
ever,  relinquished  the  secretariat  to  the  Rev.  G.  Forrest 
Browne,  afterwards  Canon  of  St.  Paul’s  and  Bishop  of 
Bristol. 

Before  passing  on  from  the  outline  of  the  history  of 
the  movement  to  the  consideration  of  R.  G.  Moulton’s 
share  in  it,  note  must  be  taken  of  the  establishment  of 
University  Colleges,  which  belongs  to  the  same  decade 
The  relation  between  the  two  enterprises  is  close,  and 
cannot  be  ignored.  University  Extension  would  never 

1  University  Extension,  1878-1923.  W.  H.  Draper,  Master  of  the 
Temple. 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 


25 


claim  the  credit  of  having  created  those  colleges  and,  by 
implication,  of  having  called  into  being  the  newer 
universities  ;  but  it  had  its  share  in  giving  impetus  to  the 
new  developments.  Probably  the  truest  statement  of  the 
case  would  be  to  say  that  both  were  the  products  of  the 
same  progressive  spirit  in  education  and  the  widening  of 
culture,  and  that  University  Extension — the  first-born — 
was  in  a  position  to  afford  some  measure  of  assistance  to 
the  younger  offspring.  Whether  this  be  so  or  not,  that 
decade  saw  a  phenomenal  development  in  that  direction. 
Owen’s  College,  Manchester,  had  been  founded  in  1851. 
During  the  period  1871  to  1881 — largely  owing  to  the 
munificence  of  private  donors — colleges  were  founded  at 
Newcastle,  Birmingham,  Bristol,  Liverpool,  Nottingham, 
and  Sheffield,  the  last  two  especially  resulting  directly 
and  confessedly  out  of  the  Extension  Movement.  Also 
(in  1877)  the  Yorkshire  College  at  Leeds  took  on  the 
preparation  for  degrees  in  Arts,  having  been  originally 
the  Yorkshire  College  of  Science. 

In  this  chronicle  of  the  beginnings  of  University 
Extension  the  University  of  Cambridge  has  been  chiefly 
in  evidence,  because  naturally  Mr.  Stuart  approached  his 
own  University  when  he  thought  out  his  projects ;  and 
also  because  the  subject  of  the  present  memoir  was  a 
Cambridge  man.  But  Cambridge  was  far  from  receiving, 
or  desiring  to  receive,  a  monopoly  of  the  new  openings  for 
service  in  this  field.  In  June,  1876,  at  a  meeting  at  the 
Mansion  House,  Mr.  Goschen,  who  was  then  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  moved  a  resolution  to  the  effect  ‘  that 
the  principle  of  the  Cambridge  University  Extension 
scheme  be  applied  to  London,  and  that  the  various  Educa¬ 
tion  Institutions  of  the  Metropolis  be  requested  to  co¬ 
operate  in  an  endeavour  to  apply  it.’  The  following  year 
Mr.  Jowett,  afterwards  Master  of  Balliol,  gave  some 
very  outspoken  evidence  before  the  Oxford  University 


26 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


Commission,  in  which  he  called  attention  to  the  considerable 
movement  for  secondary  adult  education  then  going  on 
in  the  large  towns,  and  urged  that  the  universities  should 
*  take  a  little  pains  '  about  it.  Two  practical  suggestions 
he  made  :  (i)  that  there  should  be  an  office  for  University 
Extension,  and  a  secretary  paid  by  the  University  :  (2) 
that  the  tenure  of  non-resident  fellowships  should  be 
capable  of  extension  in  the  case  of  persons  lecturing  or 
holding  professorships  in  the  large  towns.  Within  twelve 
months  of  Mr.  Jowett’s  evidence  being  given  Oxford  had 
followed  in  the  wake  of  Cambridge,  with  Mr.  Arthur  Acland 
as  secretary.  To-day  the  more  recent  universities  have 
their  systems  of  University  Extension  Lectures,  and  there 
is  no  such  institution  which  does  not  make  the  effort  to 
bring  its  activities  to  bear  upon  those  who  for  some  reason 
or  other  are  altogether  unable  to  come  within  its  more 
immediate  influence. 

It  was  into  a  movement  so  rich  in  varied  possibilities 
that  R.  G.  Moulton  threw  himself  with  all  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  young  man.  It  caught  hold  of  him  and  he  caught 
hold  of  it.  His  place  in  the  movement  is  the  more  remark¬ 
able  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  he  was  only  twenty-five 
when  he  took  up  the  work  ;  and  also  that  the  enterprise 
itself  w'as  new,  and  therefore  had  no  momentum  already 
generated.  It  was  laid  upon  him  and  those  associated  with 
him  to  create  a  living  expression  of  the  ideals  which  had 
already  moved  the  founders  of  the  movement,  for  they 
would  have  been  the  first  to  recognize  that  the  scheme 
would  stand  or  fall  with  the  ability  of  the  lecturers  to 
translate  it  into  palpitating  realities.  As  it  turned  out, 
this  was  to  be  in  an  especial  sense  the  commission  for 
R.  G.  Moulton,  he  having  no  other  public  obligations,  and 
so  being  more  at  liberty  to  throw  himself  into  the  work 
than  were  other  lecturers  of  that  early  period.  From 
September  to  April  each  year  his  courses  kept  him  closely 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 


2  7 


occupied  ;  and  the  amount  of  travelling  entailed  was 
considerable.  At  that  time  Summer  Meetings,  Chautau- 
quas  and  the  like,  were  not  so  regular  a  part  of  educational 
programmes  for  the  year  as  they  have  since  become,  and 
the  so-called  ‘  vacation  ’  of  about  five  months  was 
attractive  both  as  a  welcome  relief  from  the  strain  of  the 
lecturing  season,  and  as  an  excellent  opportunity  for  the 
formulation  of  plans  and  for  literary  study.  Of  the  latter, 
a  large  part  was,  in  the  earliest  years,  by  way  of  prepara¬ 
tion  for  the  next  winter’s  lectures  and  classes  ;  but  the 
trend  of  it  all  for  R.  G.  Moulton  was  ever  along  the  lines 
of  that  working  for  the  scientific  study  of  literature  as  a 
whole,  to  which — as  a  life-object — he  definitely  dedicated 
himself  at  the  age  of  thirty. 

If  he  joined  us,  as  he  very  often  did,  for  a  six  weeks’ 
holiday  in  Scotland  or  elsewhere,  he  would  blend  strenuous 
study  with  recreation  ;  and  that  blend  was  responsible 
for  many  a  treasured  memory.  My  father  would  go  to 
Scotland  for  a  holiday  with  at  least  three  big  boxes  full 
of  books — he  once  paid  '  excess  ’  on  fifteen  hundred  pounds 
of  luggage  ;  and  his  brother  went  off  in  the  same  spirit, 
though  with  a  much  smaller  measure  of  encumbrances. 
Whole  day  excursions  were  not  by  any  means  frowned 
upon,  but  I  have  a  kind  of  idea  that  if  proposals  of  that 
order  had  come  too  frequently,  there  would  have  been 
a  mild  protest  from  those  members  of  the  party  to  whom  a 
holiday  consisted  not  in  cessation  of  work  but  in  change 
of  work  !  Like  all  his  brothers,  my  uncle  Richard  was  a 
great  walker,  and  it  was  my  privilege  to  be  his  companion 
for  tramps  which  during  the  period  from  1885  to  1890 
must  have  totalled  up  to  a  mileage  of  nearly  four  figures, 
over  ground  as  far  apart  as  Orkney  and  Land’s  End.  On 
one  occasion  we  were  together  at  Gairloch  in  Ross-shire, 
intending  to  cross  to  Skye  the  next  day.  An  accident  to 
the  boat  in  the  evening  thwarted  our  project ;  so  at 


28 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


seven-thirty  the  next  morning  we  started  to  walk  back  to 
Strathpeffer,  where  the  family  was  staying — a  distance  of 
fifty-three  miles,  which  wre  covered  in  fifteen  hours,  in 
spite  of  having  to  do  the  last  sixteen  on  the  sleepers  of  a 
railroad  track.  For  a  young  man  in  his  early  twenties, 
constantly  kept  in  good  condition  by  various  types  of 
sport,  there  was  nothing  very  wonderful  in  such  a  pro¬ 
longed  effort ;  but  for  a  man  of  forty,  accustomed  to  a 
somewhat  sedentary  life  and  in  no  sense  prepared  for  a 
lengthy  tramp — it  was  our  first  long  walk  that  summer — 
it  was  surely  a  somewhat  noteworthy  achievement. 

I  have  digressed  thus  to  refer  to  his  predilection  for 
long  walks  because  it  was  on  those  walks  that  I  first 
learned  concerning  many  of  his  literary  projects,  those 
conceptions  of  literature  which  came  to  be  so  inseparably 
associated  with  his  name.  Indeed,  the  long  ascent  from 
Loch  Long  up  through  Glencroe  is  inseparably  associated 
in  my  mind  with  Deuteronomy  and  the  Literary  Study  of 
the  Bible  which  then  (1891)  was  occupying  all  his  thoughts  ; 
and  I  think  he  was  rather  glad  to  have  in  me  a  corpus  vile 
on  which  to  experiment,  a  ‘  trial  audience  ’  to  which  he 
could  rehearse.  If  that  was  so,  then  the  advantage  was 
mutual,  for  I  am  more  conscious  now  than  I  was  at  the 
time  of  how  much  I  got  from  him  in  that  informal  way 
The  departure  to  America  left  me  very  much  the  poorer, 
but  the  recollections  of  those  holiday  seasons  will  always 
remain. 

Seeing  that  he  gave  himself  with  such  unremitting  zeal 
to  University  Extension  during  those  formative  years  of 
the  movement,  it  will  be  worth  while  to  watch  him  at  his 
self-appointed  task,  both  because  of  what  it  reveals 
concerning  him,  and  what  it  tells  of  the  movement.  We 
find  him  beginning  his  lecturing  career  in  the  Potteries, 
with  Hanley  and  Stoke  as  his  main  centres  of  activity 
We  then  find  him  at  Lincoln  and  Chesterfield  ;  after  that, 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 


29 


at  Halifax,  Leeds,  Barnsley,  and  Sheffield.  In  the  end 
there  were  very  few  important  centres  of  population  where 
he  had  not  pleaded  for  a  recognition  of  the  worth-while¬ 
ness  of  the  study  of  literature.  His  syllabus  in  the  earliest 
courses  is  a  very  far  remove  from  that  which  he  sent  forth 
at  a  later  period,  but  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  width  of 
reading  that  lay  behind  it,  and  it  is  amazing  to  note  the 
increase  of  grip  year  by  year,  as  manifested  in  the  syllabus 
for  the  course.  He  goes  to  Warrington  in  September, 
1877,  with  an  altogether  different  presentation  of  his 
subject,  and  his  syllabus  for  the  course  reveals  the 
characteristics  which  later  become  most  noticeable  in  his 
treatment  of  the  study  of  literature.  He  is  evidently 
getting  into  his  stride.  One  of  the  most  piquant  incidents 
of  his  early  work  as  a  lecturer  is  that  afforded  by  his  first 
visit  to  Sheffield  in  the  autumn  of  1875-  He  was  giving 
an  Extension  Course  on  ‘  Literature  as  a  Reflection  of 
National  History/  to  which  he  drew  an  average  attendance 
of  three  hundred  and  fourteen.  But  alongside  of  that 
course  we  find  him  running  a  subsidiary  course  on  the 
'  Analysis  of  Sentences,’  for  which  he  managed  to  secure 
an  average  attendance  of  three  hundred  and  nine  on  a 
Saturday  afternoon  !  This  may  fairly  be  claimed  as  a 
notable  achievement,  for  the  subject  is  not  one  which 
naturally  lends  itself  to  lecture  treatment ;  and  the  fact 
that  at  such  an  hour  and  on  such  a  theme  he  gathered 
such  a  company  shows  that,  even  in  his  earliest  days  as 
a  lecturer,  he  possessed  a  gift  of  presentation  which 
attracted  students  even  where  the  subject  under  consider¬ 
ation  was  not  one  which  in  itself  could  be  regarded  as 
attractive. 

While  showing  in  his  own  work  a  brilliant  exposition 
in  practice  of  what  University  Extension  stood  for,  he 
was  always  prepared  to  do  his  share  in  respect  of  advocacy 
of  the  movement  itself  by  the  elucidation  of  its  formative 


30 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


ideas.  At  the  risk  of  echoing  certain  things  which  have 
already  been  said  with  reference  to  the  movement, 
attention  may  be  turned  to  the  syllabus  of  a  lecture  which 
he  gave  at  Belper  in  March,  1885,  on  the  subject  of  the 
movement  as  a  whole.  A  large  portion  of  that  syllabus  is 
reproduced  practically  verbatim  in  Appendix  I.,  showing  in 
general  the  typographical  variations  upon  which  he  laid  such 
stress.  It  will  serve  not  only  to  present  the  movement  as  he 
conceived  it,  but  it  will  also  show  what  there  was  in  it  to 
make  him  ready  and  eager  to  devote  so  large  a  share  of 
his  time  and  energy  to  it,  and  to  give  it  a  place  in  his 
life-plans,  second  only  to  the  work  for  ‘  literary  study  in 
general,  which,’  he  writes,  ‘  is  my  real  interest  in  life.' 

If  that  may  be  taken  as  embodying  what  he  thought  of 
the  movement,  what  the  movement  thought  of  him  may 
be  gathered  from  a  warm  appreciation  in  the  University 
Extension  Bulletin  from  the  pen  of  Prof.  A.  J.  Grant  of 
Leeds  University  in  October,  1924  : 

With  R.  G.  Moulton  there  has  passed  away,  I  think, 
the  greatest  figure  in  the  University  Extension  world. 
No  one  has  believed  in  it  more  thoroughly  :  no  one  has 
represented  its  ideas  more  worthily  ;  and  I  think  no 
one  has  done  so  much  to  recommend  it  to  all  classes  of 
people.  ...  I  never  knew  Moulton  intimately.  When¬ 
ever  we  met  he  was  kindness  itself,  and  he  put  at  my 
disposal  his  wide  experience  when  I  began  my  work  as 
lecturer ;  but  I  rarely  met  him.  And  yet  what  I 
heard  about  him  made  him  seem  a  kind  of  heroic  figure. 
There  were  many  lecturers,  but  there  was  only  one 
Moulton.  Was  there  a  lecture-centre  where  he  had 
not  the  record  for  the  largest  audiences  ?  Fabulous 
things  were  reported  of  his  power  of  attracting. 
Secretaries  who  traced  a  curve  to  show  the  fluctuation 
in  their  audiences,  pointed  to  the  high  peak  which 
indicated  a  visit  from  Moulton,  as  they  showed  in 
Phaeacia  the  marks  which  proclaimed  to  what  incredible 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 


3i 


distances  the  Gods  and  heroes  of  old  had  hurled  the 
quoit.  Was  a  centre  in  financial  difficulties  ?  A  visit 
from  Moulton  would  save  the  situation.  Was  it  desired 
to  widen  the  social  classes  to  which  the  lectures  made 
an  appeal  ?  The  same  specific  was  recommended. 
His  lectures,  I  believe,  practically  always  took  the 
form  of  recitals  of  literature,  and  it  was  amazing  to 
note  how  he  won  in  this  way  an  interested  and  eager 
audience  for  the  masterpieces  of  Greek  tragedy  and 
comedy,  and  for  the  books  of  the  Bible,  as  well  as  for 
the  more  popular  works  of  dramatic  literature.  There 
were,  of  course,  some  who  were  not  sympathetic  with 
his  methods,  and  who  thought  that  the  dramatic  appeal 
was  too  exclusively  used.  But  his  treatment  was  not 
superficial  or  flashy.  He  carried  his  audience  to  the 
heart  of  great  literature,  and  made  them  eager  to  study 
it  for  themselves.  What  a  number  of  men  and  women 
there  are  up  and  down  the  country — and  I  feel  sure  there 
are  an  equal  number  in  America — who  trace  the  beginning 
of  a  serious  study  of  literature  to  the  day  when  they 
heard  Moulton  lecture  on  Faust,  the  Agamemnon,  or 
Job  l  He  spoke,  I  believe,  nearly  always  without 
notes.  His  memory  was  prodigious ;  his  voice  clear 
and  penetrating.  He  recognized  that  lecturing  was  his 
business  in  life,  and  he  considered  with  wise  care  every 
detail  of  gesture  and  voice  management.  There  was 
one  small  point  in  which,  I  think,  his  lectures  had  an 
almost  solitary  pre-eminence.  They  always  ended 
exactly  at  the  appointed  moment.  Audiences  used 
to  cheer  as  his  last  words  were  mingled  with  the  striking 
of  a  neighbouring  clock.  .  .  .  His  lectures  were  unlike 
those  of  anyone  else.  It  is  surely  a  real  mark  of  genius 
to  do  what  many  others  do,  better  than  anyone  else, 
and  in  a  manner  different  from  anyone  else.  There  are 
many  popular  lecturers  on  Literature,  and  there  are 
many  learned  lecturers  on  Literature.  But  who  has 
combined  the  two  qualities  as  Moulton  did  ?  Who,  so 
well  as  he,  has  used  gesture,  declamation,  and  rhetoric 


1 


32 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


to  promote  real  intellectual  study  ?  I  will  end  as  I 
began,  by  saying  that  there  have  been  many  lecturers, 
but  only  one  Moulton,  and  I  hardly  think  there  will  be 
another.  The  next  generation  will  find  it  difficult  to 
realize  the  peculiar  quality  of  his  work  ;  perhaps  difficult 
to  understand  how  splendidly  successful  it  was. 


CHAPTER  III. 


The  Study  of  Literature. 

It  is  not  claiming  too  much  for  R.  G.  Moulton  to  describe 
him  as  a  pioneer  in  the  field  of  popularizing  the  study  of 
Literature.  The  University  Extension  Movement,  as  has 
been  seen,  gave  him  his  platform  ;  and  there  thronged 
round  it  hundreds  and  thousands  for  whom  existing 
organizations  had  furnished  no  word  of  inspiration,  unless 
it  might  be  through  cold  print.  During  his  eighteen  years 
of  University  Extension  work  in  England  he  found  an 
eager  response  to  the  kind  of  appeal  he  made  ;  and  what 
was  true  of  England  proved  true  also  of  America  when  he 
turned  thither  for  his  sphere  of  activity.  It  is  therefore 
of  primary  importance  for  our  purpose  here  to  try  to  catch 
his  angle  of  approach  to  Literature  ;  for  it  was  essentially 
his  own,  and  it  certainly  ‘  delivered  the  goods.’  If  the 
pioneer  in  civilization  is  reckoned  great  according  to  his 
power  to  make  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  before  there 
had  been  only  one,  surely  the  same  appreciation  must  be 
awarded  to  the  interpreter  of  Literature  who  calls  into  being 
two  intelligent  readers  where  before  there  had  been  only 
one.  And  this  he  achieved  without  a  shadow  of  doubt. 
There  must  have  been  something  in  his  presentation  of 
his  many-sided  subject  that  captured  the  imagination  of 
his  hearers,  for  he  built  up  classes  which,  for  size  and 
eagerness,  have  been  some  of  the  wonders  of  the  movement. 
He  undoubtedly  followed  a  line  of  approach  which  had  his 
own  individuality  stamped  upon  it ;  and  ‘  it  got  there.’ 
c 


33 


34 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


What  ‘  it  ’  really  was  may  be  deduced  from  his  writings, 
and  especially  from  two.  The  first  is  the  Introduction 
to  his  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist,  published  in  1885, 
and  embodying  teaching  which  he  had  been  giving  in 
University  Extension  centres  up  and  down  the  country 
for  more  than  ten  years.  The  second  is  a  Convocation 
address  which  he  gave  at  the  University  of  Chicago  early 
in  1917  on  The  Study  of  Literature  and  the  Integration  of 
Knowledge.  In  these  two  utterances — at  the  ages  of 
thirty-six  and  sixty-eight — we  have  his  ‘  profession  of 
faith  ’  concerning  those  matters  which  were  the  objects 
of  his  life’s  study.  The  view-point  and  the  setting  were 
somewhat  different,  but  the  attitude  of  mind  was  the 
same.  However  much  he  developed  in  insight,  in  grasp, 
in  width  of  learning,  he  saw  no  reason  to  recede  from 
those  leading  propositions  concerning  Literature  which 
had  shaped  his  presentation  of  the  subject  from  the 
first. 

During  the  last  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century 
Matthew  Arnold  was  preaching  that  Literature  was, 
before  all  things,  a  criticism  of  life  :  and  that  idea  was, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  foundation  of  R.  G. 
Moulton’s  conception  of  literary  study.  But  if  we  are 
to  understand  his  work,  we  must  follow  him  into  his 
inquiries  into  the  implications  of  the  three  terms  used — 
Criticism,  Literature,  Life.  First  we  turn  to  the  predi¬ 
cative  term  as  delimiting  all  else.  Few  words  have  slipped 
from  their  moorings  more  disastrously  than  ‘  criticism.’ 
Among  the  majority  of  readers  criticism  has  come  to  be 
regarded  as  fault-finding  and  blame  ;  with  the  result  that 
‘  Biblical  Criticism  ’ — to  single  out  one  serious  example — 
is  in  many  quarters  regarded  with  horror  and  aversion  as 
being  an  indictment  of  God  and  a  slight  upon  holy  things. 
It  is  needless  here  to  stress  the  point  that  the  word 
‘  criticism  ’  does  not  rightly  carry  that  signification  ;  and 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


35 


that  Matthew  Arnold  does  not  use  it  in  that  sense,  but 
according  to  its  rightful  meaning — the  ascertaining  and 
exposition  of  facts,  in  the  interests  of  a  true  inter¬ 
pretation  of  Life.  But  ‘  Life,'  according  to  usage 
and  context,  will  also  be  found  bearing  a  variety  of 
significations. 

I  mean  ‘  Life  ’  with  a  capital  L.  It  is  what  we  have  in 
mind  when  we  say  we  are  going  out  to  ‘  see  Life.’  It 
is  what  the  speaker  in  the  Latin  play  meant  when  he 
said  that,  human  himself,  he  considered  all  humanity 
his  province.  And  when  the  modern  poet  lays  down 
that  ‘  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  Man,’  he  does 
not  mean  anthropology  ;  he  means  Life.  What  defines 
this  Life  is  its  synthetic  character,  and  for  this  reason  it 
is  incompatible  with  specialization.  Many  sciences 
touch  Life,  but  by  their  constitution  as  sciences  they  can 
deal  with  only  one  aspect  of  Life  at  a  time.  Etymo¬ 
logically,  biology  should  mean  the  science  of  life  :  what 
it  actually  means  is  science  of  the  physical  basis  of  life. 
Sociology  can  deal  with  life  only  in  aggregations. 
Ethics  and  psychology  yield  general  principles  of  life ; 
but  they  need  to  be  supplemented  with  a  distributive 
ethics  and  psychology  before  they  can  overtake  the 
personality  which  is  such  an  element  in  synthetic  Life. 
Hence  the  medium  for  this  study  of  Life  reverts  from 
science  to  literature.  The  literature  required  is  litera¬ 
ture  in  the  most  general  sense,  including  poetry  and 
fiction,  including  the  floating  literature  of  journalism. 
It  must  extend  to  the  most  frivolous  society  paper  :  for 
the  instrument  of  reflection  must  not  admit  restrictions 
foreign  to  the  thing  surveyed,  as  you  cannot  measure 
spherical  angles  with  plane  rules.  And  all  this  is 
precisely  what  Matthew  Arnold  means  when,  having 
first  laid  down  that  criticism  signifies  the  seeing  things 
as  they  really  are,  he  defines  literature  as  the  ‘  criticism 
of  fife.’  It  appears  then  that  general  literature,  besides 
being  the  natural  organ  for  the  integration  of  thought, 


36 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


has  in  this  one  case  a  specific  function  :  it  serves  as  the 
only  possible  science  and  practical  art  of  Life.1 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it  was  this  belief  which 
not  only  shaped  R.  G.  Moulton’s  thinking  on  the  whole 
subject  of  Literature,  but  it  was  instrumental  in  creating 
within  him  a  sense,  an  overwhelming  sense,  of  the  supreme 
‘  worth-whileness  ’  of  the  subject.  The  science  of  life,  as 
concerned  with  ‘  the  thing  living,’  is  worthy  of  honour  and 
devotion  ;  no  less  so,  in  his  opinion,  is  the  science  of  life, 
as  concerned  with  ‘  the  thing  lived  ’ ;  and  to  the  latter 
he  gave  himself  with  all  the  enthusiasm  and  the  meticulous 
care  which  we  associate  with  the  physical  scientist,  only 
to  find  that  there  were  striking  analogies  between  the  study 
of  the  life  that  lives  and  that  of  the  life  that  is  lived. 

It  could  not  but  be  that  he  should  reiterate  certain 
fundamental  propositions  which  were  to  him  essential, 
but  which  he  felt  to  be  in  general  intercourse  ignored  or 
obscured,  either  by  misconception  or  by  misuse  of  terms. 
These  are  so  characteristic  of  his  method  that  they  call 
for  attention  here,  although  in  these  few  pages  it  is  imposs¬ 
ible  to  present  more  than  the  merest  outline  of  his  message. 
It  was  significant  of  much  that  at  first  his  chair  at 
the  University  of  Chicago  was  that  of  ‘  Literature  in 
English,’  and  that  afterwards  the  title  should  have  been 
altered  to  ‘  Literary  Theory  and  Interpretation.’  The 
fusion  of  the  two  would  furnish  an  adequate  designation 
of  his  work,  for  all  the  three  ideas  have  their  place  in  it. 
Literary  Interpretation  was  his  mission  ;  and  it  was  his 
mission  because  to  him  Literature  provided  the  outstand¬ 
ing  interpretation  of  Life.  But  he  drew  a  very  clear  line 
of  distinction  between  Literature  in  English  and  English 
Literature. 

1  The  Study  of  Literature  and  the  Integration  of  Knowledge  (University 
of  Chicago  Record,  April,  1912,  p.  90). 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE  37 

If  the  main  function  of  Literature  is  to  interpret  Life, 
then  the  obligation  of  studying  a  Greek  play  in  the  original 
language  may  prove  a  serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
intelligent  perception  of  the  subject-matter ;  and  he  was 
consequently  a  whole-hearted  advocate  of  the  study  of 
the  Classics  in  translations.  He  had  the  body  of  existing 
opinion  against  him,  and  he  knew  it.  The  idea  was  a 
novel  one,  and  academic  thought  and  practice  then  tended 
much  more  to  conservatism  than  it  does  now.  To  propose 
to  dethrone  Greek  and  Latin,  and  to  admit  the  general 
public  to  the  treasure-houses  of  classical  literature  by  a 
back  door  seemed  to  many  to  be  the  acme  of  impiety. 
But  he  stood  his  ground,  and  gradually  wore  down  the 
main  body  of  the  prejudice  against  the  idea.  Writing  in 
1911,  when  the  idea  had  vindicated  itself  and  the  battle 
for  the  wider  view  was  won,  he  says  : 

There  is  a  widespread  feeling  that  the  reading 
of  translated  literature  is  a  makeshift,  and  savours 
of  second-hand  scholarship.  But  this  idea  is  itself 
a  product  of  the  departmental  study  of  literature 
which  has  prevailed  hitherto,  in  which  language  and 
literature  have  been  so  inextricably  intertwined  that  it 
has  become  difficult  to  think  of  the  two  separately. 
The  idea  will  not  bear  rational  examination.  If  a  man, 
instead  of  reading  Homer  in  Greek,  reads  him  in 
English,  he  has  unquestionably  lost  something.  But 
the  question  arises.  Is  what  he  has  lost  literature  ? 
Clearly  a  great  proportion  of  what  goes  to  make  liter¬ 
ature  has  not  been  lost;  presentation  of  antique  life, 
swing  of  epic  narrative,  conceptions  of  heroic  character 
and  incident,  skill  of  plot,  poetical  imagery — all  these 
elements  of  Homeric  literature  are  open  to  the  reader  of 
translations.  But,  it  will  be  said,  language  itself  is  one 
of  the  main  factors  in  literature.  This  is  true,  but  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  term  ‘  language  ’  covers 
two  different  things :  a  considerable  proportion  of 


38 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


linguistic  phenomena  is  common  to  related  languages 
and  will  pass  from  one  to  the  other,  while  other  elements 
of  language  are  idiomatic  and  fixed.  What  the  English 
reader  of  Homer  has  lost  is  not  language,  but  Greek. 
And  he  has  not  lost  the  whole  of  Greek  ;  the  skilled 
translator  can  convey  something  of  the  ethos  of  idiomatic 
Greek  into  his  version,  writing  what  may  be  correct 
English,  but  not  such  English  as  an  Englishman  would 
write.  When,  however,  all  abatement  has  been  made, 
the  reader  of  the  translation  has  suffered  a  distinct  loss  ; 
and  the  classical  scholar  knows  how  great  that  loss  is. 
But  the  point  at  issue  is  not  the  comparative  value  of 
literature  and  language,  but  the  possibility  of  realizing 
literature  as  a  unity.  One  who  accepts  the  use  of 
translations  where  necessary  secures  all  factors  of 
literature  except  language,  and  a  considerable  part 
even  of  that.  One  who  refuses  translations  by  that 
fact  cuts  himself  off  from  the  major  part  of  the  literary 
field  ;  his  literary  scholarship,  however  polished  and 
precise,  can  never  rise  above  the  provincial.1 

When,  moreover,  to  such  considerations  there  is  added  the 
fact  that  so  many  great  scholars  have  contributed  to  the 
library  of  translations  from  the  classics — men  such  as 
Jebb,  Jowett,  Munro,  Gilbert  Murray,  Way,  and  others — 
it  must  be  acknowledged  that  a  very  strong  case  has  been 
made  out  for  the  effective  study  of  the  classics  in  English. 
To  all  these  R.  G.  Moulton  could  add  yet  one  more 
argument  more  cogent  than  them  all — that  of  experience. 
The  plan  had  worked  :  the  idea  had  borne  fruit : 

Under  the  Cambridge  University  Extension  scheme  (he 
writes  in  1890)  I  have  since  1880  conducted  courses  of 
lectures  on  Ancient  Drama  in  twenty-six  different  places, 
addressed  to  adult  audiences,  representing  all  classes 
of  society,  in  which  not  one  person  in  ten  would  know 
a  word  of  Greek  or  Latin.  Taking  my  experience  as 

1  World  Literature,  p.  3. 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


39 


a  whole,  I  should  rank  the  Ancient  Classics  second  only 
to  Shakespeare  and  Goethe  as  an  attractive  subject 
for  lectures  ;  and  I  may  add  that  the  largest  audiences 
I  have  ever  myself  had  to  deal  with  were  in  connexion 
with  a  course  on  Ancient  Tragedy  at  Newcastle-on- 
Tyne,  where  they  reached  a  weekly  average  of  over 
seven  hundred.  In  all  these  cases  a  considerable 
percentage  of  the  audience  did  regular  exercises  in  the 
subject  of  the  lectures,  and  were  tested  at  the  end  of 
the  course  in  a  formal  examination,  with  results  satis¬ 
factory  enough  to  assure  the  position  of  this  study  as 
part  of  a  general  English  education.1 

Within  this  field  of  literature  in  English  he  was  wont  to 
form  his  own  categories  and  distinctions  :  and  the  differ¬ 
ence  between  his  categories  and  those  of  other  workers  in 
the  same  field  lies  mainly  in  his  stress  upon  certain  implica¬ 
tions.  Every  one  admits,  for  instance,  that  ‘  poetry  ’ 
and  ‘  poem  ’  are  not  conditioned  by  presentation  in  verse, 
but  that  what  is  determinative  is  that  poetry  betokens 
creative  literature,  as  distinguished  from  what  is  concerned 
with  the  exposition  or  discussion  of  that  which  actually 
exists.  But  whereas  others  might  often  be  disposed  to 
note  the  point,  and  pass  on  to  use  the  term  in  its  con¬ 
ventional  sense,  with  R.  G.  Moulton  it  determined  his 
whole  attitude  to  the  subject.  ‘  The  distinction  of  prose 
and  poetry,’  he  contends,  ‘  goes  down  to  the  essential 
meaning  and  matter  of  literature  ’  :  and,  referring  to 
Paul’s  phrase  in  Eph.  ii,  io,  ‘  We  are  God’s  workmanship  ’ 
(lit.  ‘  poem  ’)  he  goes  on  to  say  : 

As  God  is  the  supreme  Maker  and  Creator  of  the 
universe,  and  we  are  what  God  has  created  and  made, 
so  the  poet  is  the  creator  of  an  imaginary  universe, 
which  he  fills  with  imagined  personages  and  incidents. 
Shakespeare  is  a  poet  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  he  has 


1  The  Ancient  Classical  Drama.  Preface  to  the  first  edition. 


40 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


created  a  Hamlet,  a  Julius  Caesar,  a  Battle  of  Agincourt  ; 
the  Homeric  poems  create  an  Achilles,  a  Trojan  War. 
There  may  have  been  an  historical  Achilles,  as  there 
certainly  was  an  historic  Julius  Caesar  :  but  the  Shake¬ 
spearean  Julius  Caesar,  the  Homeric  Achilles,  are 
independent  creations,  which  may  or  may  not  agree 
with  the  historic  counterparts.  Poetry  thus  adds  to 
the  sum  of  existences  ;  the  world  is  the  richer  by  so 
many  personalities  and  incidents  when  the  poets  have 
completed  their  work.  In  precisely  the  same  way 
Dickens  creates  a  Micawber  and  a  Pickwick ;  our 
novels  add  to  the  sum  of  existences  by  the  imagined  life 
they  create.  Modern  novels,  just  as  much  as  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey,  are  in  the  fullest  sense  poetry.1 

This  being  the  case,  our  current  conception  of  ‘  fiction  ’ 
goes  by  the  board.  Instead  of  being  the  antithesis  to 
‘  fact  ’  and  often  a  term  of  sheer  reproach,  it  is  really  ‘  the 
higher  fact,’  because  it  is  the  more  truly  universal.  Once 
more,  therefore,  we  are  up  against  the  prevailing  unwilling¬ 
ness  to  recognize  the  distinction  between  creative  literature 
and  the  literature  of  discussion.  The  false  implication 
centring  in  the  current  conceptions  of '  fiction  ’  were  often 
dealt  with  by  him,  for  they  touched  some  of  the  principles 
which  were  to  him  most  vital ;  and  the  importance  of  the 
issue  in  relation  to  his  own  literary  conceptions  may  be 
pleaded  in  justification  of  this  somewhat  prolonged  insist¬ 
ence  on  the  point.  It  will  be  most  satisfactory  to  state 
the  case  in  his  own  words  : 

Even  in  academic  thinking  (he  wrote  in  1917),  much 
more  in  the  world  outside,  we  hear  a  clamour  for  studies 
‘  founded  on  fact.’  I  often  wonder  what  is  the  exact 
idea  here  attached  to  this  word  ‘  fact.’  The  man  in 
the  street  has  no  difficulty  about  it  :  fact  is  truth.  But 
fact  is  not  truth,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because  facts 

1  Modern  Study  of  Literature,  p.  15. 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


4* 


are  always  particulars,  and  truth  is  general ;  facts  are 
raw  material  that  can  be  manufactured  into  truth. 
But  they  are  also  raw  material  that  can  be  manufactured 
into  falsehood  :  witness  the  campaign  literature  of  the 
wrong  political  party,  monstrously  false,  yet  founded 
on  statistics,  and  statistics  are  facts.  And  particulars 
which  are  not  facts  can  have  their  place  in  the  manu¬ 
facture  of  truth  or  falsehood.  The  distinction  between 
the  particulars  we  call  facts  and  others  is  that  facts  are 
particulars  which  happen  to  have  happened  :  other 
particulars  might,  would,  must  happen  under  the 
proper  conditions.  The  distinction  is  as  old  as  Aristotle, 
and  '  foundation  on  fact  ’  turns  out  to  be  ‘  foundation 
on  accident.’  By  a  most  unfortunate  confusion  of 
words  the  common  antithesis  to  ‘  fact  ’  is  '  fiction.’ 
The  two  words  have  no  relation  to  each  other  :  fact  is 
a  term  of  science  ;  fiction  is  a  term  of  literature.  The 
true  antithesis  to  fiction  is  the  studies  that  limit  them¬ 
selves  by  facts,  whereas  fiction  admits  all  relevant 
particulars.  Biography  is  one  of  those  studies  that  are 
supposed  to  limit  themselves  by  facts.  Place  side  by 
side  a  biography  and  a  work  of  fiction  in  biographic 
form,  like  Pendennis  or  Esmond.  In  the  biography  the 
allegiance  is  to  fact ;  though  it  contains  much  of  general 
truth,  it  also  contains  a  number  of  unrelated  particulars, 
inserted  because  they  happened  to  the  hero  of  the  story. 
In  the  fiction  there  is  no  motive  for  introducing  un¬ 
related  particulars  ;  it  need  admit  nothing  that  is  not 
deemed  relevant  to  general  truth.  The  fiction  comes 
out  truer  than  the  biography  in  the  sense  of  containing 
proportionately  more  of  truth. 

But  there  is  another  point  that  is  best  brought  out 
by  analogy.  Fiction  is  the  experimental  side  of  the 
science  of  life  :  creative  literature  is,  in  the  humanities, 
what  experiments  are  in  the  natural  sciences.  For 
what  exactly  is  scientific  experiment  ?  It  is  a  particular 
kind  of  observation  :  observation  of  material  expressly 
arranged  for  observation.  How  would  the  simplest 


42 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


chemical  combination  be  brought  home  to  this  audience 
if  the  chemist  were  denied  the  use  of  experiment  ?  He 
must  drag  his  audience  away  to  some  place  where  the 
particular  combination  happened  to  be  going  on  in 
nature  ;  arrived  at  the  place,  he  must  wait  until  a 
change  of  weather,  or  something  of  the  kind,  should 
bring  about  the  required  atmospheric  pressure  and 
electric  shock.  Instead  of  this,  the  expositor  of 
chemistry  ‘  makes  up  ’  an  experiment  :  getting  what  he 
wants  away  from  the  rest  of  nature  into  his  chemical 
apparatus,  and  by  an  artificial  manipulation  of  this 
apparatus  bringing  about  the  further  conditions. 
Similarly,  the  poet  or  novelist  may  ignore  the  irrelevant, 
and  select  what  of  life  is  calculated  to  reveal  the  truth. 
The  analogy  is  one  to  be  pressed.  In  all  things  of  the 
kind  there  are  two  stages  :  the  gathering  together  of 
data  and  a  reaction  from  these  data.  Alike  the  experi¬ 
menter  of  science  and  the  poet  or  novelist  have  arbitrary 
freedom  as  to  what  data  they  may  choose  to  bring 
together  :  when  the  data  are  assembled,  each  is  a  helpless 
reporter  of  the  reaction  that  ensues.  But,  it  may  be 
objected,  the  novelist  may  report  the  reaction  wrongly. 
So  may  the  chemist.  Controversies  arise  in  science, 
not  from  the  facts  of  the  experiments  being  misstated, 
but  because  the  reactions  are  wrongly  interpreted. 
The  argument  is  not  for  any  infallibility  of  fiction  ; 
error  is  a  matter  of  individual  performance  ;  but  the 
creative  literature  stands  as  a  more  powerful  weapon  of 
research  for  human  life.1 

I  have  quoted  this  passage  at  length,  partly  because  of 
its  intrinsic  value,  and  partly  because  it  is  so  characteristic 
of  R.  G.  Moulton’s  method  of  teaching.  No  one  could 
ever  have  been  less  under  the  tyranny  of  conventional  ideas 
and  distinctions  :  and  an  argument  of  that  order  and 
along  such  lines  was  calculated  to  arrest  the  attention  of 

1  The  Study  of  Literature  and  the  Integration  of  Knowledge.  See  pp.  34 
and  36  n. 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


43 


any  reasonably  earnest  audience  ;  and  they  would  be 
driven,  in  spite  of  themselves,  to  search  into  these  things 
to  see  if  they  were  so.  The  aptness  of  the  analogy  could 
not  fail  to  commend  yet  further  the  thesis  set  forth,  with 
the  result  that  a  new  germinating  thought  would  have 
been  planted  in  the  minds  of  the  hearers. 

This  may  be  a  suitable  place  for  turning  attention  to 
a  very  interesting  by-product  of  University  Extension  for 
which  R.  G.  Moulton  was  very  largely  responsible — the 
Backworth  Classical  Novel-Reading  Union.  Backworth 
is  one  of  a  group  of  mining  villages  lying  between  Newcastle 
and  the  Northumbrian  coast  at  Monkseaton.  When  the 
University  Extension  Movement  came  along,  Backworth 
proved  one  of  those  centres  which  maintained  its  adherence 
the  most  consistently.  In  the  spring  of  1890  R.  G.  Moulton 
gave  a  course  of  lectures  there  on  the  Study  of  Literature, 
and  among  other  lessons  taught  was  the  importance  of 
fiction  as  a  wholesome  and  educational  influence.  The 
course  was  an  extremely  successful  one  ;  and  when  the 
suggestion  was  thrown  out  that  a  society  should  be  formed, 
the  object  of  which  should  be  the  study  of  classical  fiction, 
the  idea  was  received  with  great  warmth.  The  plan  of 
operation  for  the  Union  was  embodied  in  a  circular  which 
ran  as  follows  : 

Principle. 

Literature  is  the  science  of  Life  ;  and  the  great  classical 
novels  are  among  the  best  text-books  of  Life.  To  study 
these  is  the  true  antidote  to  trashy  and  poisonous  fiction. 

Purpose. 

The  purpose  of  the  Union  is  to  encourage  a  course  of 
systematic  novel- reading,  (1)  at  the  rate  of  a  novel  a 
month  ;  (2)  to  be  taken  up  by  ordinary  readers  and 
students,  the  former  reading  and  talking  about  the 
novels,  the  latter  meeting  to  discuss  and  do  work. 


44 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


Plan  of  Operation. 

(i)  A  postcard  will  be  sent  to  every  member  at  the 
beginning  of  the  month  announcing  {a)  the  novel  chosen 
for  the  month  ;  ( b )  a  very  brief  suggestion  from  some 
competent  literary  authority  of  some  leading  points 
to  be  kept  in  view  during  the  reading  of  the  work  ; 
(c)  the  date  and  business  of  the  first  meeting. 

(ii)  All  joining  the  Union  undertake  to  read  during  the 
month  the  novel  selected,  and  from  time  to  time  to 
endeavour  to  turn  conversation  upon  it. 

(iii)  All  members  are  invited  to  attend,  and,  if  they 
like,  take  part  in  the  meetings  of  the  Union.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  fully  recognized  that  many  more  will 
undertake  the  reading  than  those  able  to  attend  the 
meetings  or  do  work. 

(iv)  The  business  of  the  meetings  will  be,  (a)  the  reading 

and  discussion  of  papers  (especially  upon  subjects 
connected  with  the  suggestions  made  by  the  literary 
authority) ;  (6)  discussion  of  difficulties  or  queries 

started  by  members  ;  (c)  formal  debates  upon  questions 
arising  out  of  the  novel  of  the  month. 

Within  six  weeks  the  number  of  members  had  risen  to 
eighty-seven  ;  and  although  it  was  found  necessary  to 
extend  the  time  of  consideration  from  one  month  to  two, 
and  one  or  two  other  modifications  were  made  in  the 
scheme,  the  record  of  the  four  years’  working,  contained  in 
R.  G.  Moulton’s  booklet  on  the  subject1,  is  one  of  great 
intrinsic  interest  and  remarkable  success.  Among  the 
novels  selected  during  those  four  years  were  Martin 
Chuzzlewit,  Anne  of  Geier stein,  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities, 
Westward  Ho!,  Vanity  Fair,  Put  Yourself  in  His  Place, 
Silas  Marner,  Jane  Eyre,  Romola,  Alton  Locke,  The 
Wandering  Jew,  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  Ninety-Three, 

1  Four  Years  of  Novel-reading :  an  account  of  an  experiment  in 
popularizing  the  study  of  fiction.  Edited  by  R.  G.  Moulton,  M.A., 
Ph.D.  (Isbister  &  Co.,  1895). 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


45 


Esmond,  The  Egoist,  David  Copperfield,  Persuasion,  The 
Shadow  of  the  Sword,  Lorna  Doone,  Monte  Cristo.  The 
list  of  those  who  showed  their  interest  in  the  enterprise 
by  contributing  the  ‘  suggestions  ’  is  in  itself  noteworthy, 
for  it  included  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy,  M.P.,  the  Earl  of 
Suffolk,  Prof.  A.  J.  Grant,  Mr.  (now  Sir)  Owen  Seaman, 
Mr.  W.  E.  Norris,  Mr.  G.  Lowes  Dickenson,  Mr.  J.  H. 
Shorthouse,  Sir  Courtenay  Boyle,  and  Mr.  Stanley  Wey- 
man.  That  such  an  enterprise  should  spring  up  in  such 
a  constituency  affords  a  striking  testimony  to  the 
nature  of  the  field  in  which  University  Extension  has 
worked. 

When  we  turn  to  the  nature  of  his  work  in  this  field  of 
creative  literature  in  English,  we  find  at  once  that  his 
demarcation  between  language  and  literature — already 
referred  to  in  connexion  with  the  study  of  the  Classics  in 
English  translations — reappears  under  somewhat  different 
conditions.  It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  in  his 
opinion  the  loss  entailed  was  not  in  the  sphere  of  literature 
but  of  Greek — and  only  partial  there.  But  in  his  method 
of  approach  to  the  masterpieces  of  English  Literature  we 
find  that  what  is  pre-eminently  distinctive  of  his  treatment 
is  that  the  subject-matter  is  so  exclusively  viewed  from  the 
standpoint  of  literature  rather  than  of  language  or  history. 
No  one  would  desire  to  belittle  the  value  of  the  normal 
type  of  text-book  on,  for  example,  a  Shakespeare  play, 
in  that  it  carefully  discusses  the  probable  historical  basis 
of  the  play,  its  date,  its  relation  to  other  works  by  the 
same  author,  its  vocabulary  and  idiosyncrasies.  All  such 
treatment  may  contribute  to  the  better  understanding  of 
the  work,  and  R.  G.  Moulton  would  have  been  ready  to 
accord  full  recognition  to  existing  text-books  in  respect 
of  what  they  set  out  to  do,  although  he  would  demur  to 
regard  that  type  of  study  as  being  the  study  of  literature, 
in  that  it  stopped  short  of  the  ‘  criticism  of  life.'  More- 


46 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


over,  from  the  first  he  stood  out  for  the  proposition  that 
there  is  an  inductive  science  of  literary  criticism. 

As  botany  deals  inductively  with  the  phenomena  o* 
vegetable  life  and  traces  the  laws  underlying  them,  as 
economy  reviews  and  systematizes  on  inductive  princi¬ 
ples  the  facts  of  commerce,  so  there  is  a  criticism  not  less 
inductive  in  character  which  has  for  its  subject-matter 
literature.1 

This  was  the  determining  factor  in  all  his  work,  the 
nerve-centre  of  his  whole  scheme  of  literary  study  and 
exposition.  This  very  fruitful  line  of  study  he  pursued 
into  new  fields,  with  the  result  that  to  thousands  of 
students,  of  all  grades,  he  made  literature  a  new  thing 
altogether  with  a  new  ‘  worth-whileness.’  It  was  in  April, 
1885,  that  he  issued  his  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist, 
with  its  highly  characteristic  introductory  essay,  entitled 
4  A  Plea  for  an  Inductive  Science  of  Literary  Criticism.' 
He  had  already  been  teaching  along  those  lines  for  more 
than  ten  years  in  University  Extension  centres  throughout 
England  with  very  marked  success  :  and  he  was  constantly 
verifying  his  hypotheses  and  finding  them  to  be  even  more 
widely  true  than  he  had  imagined  at  the  first.  It  was  the 
nature  of  this  insistence  on  the  inductive  method  and  the 
wide  scope  of  its  application  that  differentiated  him  from 
other  exponents  of  literature.  Reference  has  already 
been  made  to  his  earnest  deprecation  of  all  association  of 
praise  and  blame  with  the  term  ‘  criticism  ’ ;  and  here  he 
makes  abundantly  clear  the  reasons  for  the  faith  that  was 
in  him. 

This  4  Introduction  ’  to  his  first  book  may  fairly  be 
regarded  in  the  light  of  an  4  Introduction  ’  to  his  life-work, 
a  manifesto  as  to  the  message  he  had  to  deliver,  and  did 
deliver  throughout  his  whole  career  :  and  it  is  worthy  of 

1  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist,  p.  1. 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


47 


notice  that  the  last  sentence  of  his  farewell  oration  to  the 
University  of  Chicago,  when  he  laid  down  his  office  in 
June,  1919,  was  a  quotation  from  Bacon,  the  great  pioneer 
of  the  inductive  method.  It  will  therefore  be  profitable 
to  follow  him  in  his  argument  in  this  ‘  Introduction  ’  in 
preference  to  setting  forth  any  estimates  of  my  own  as  to 
his  position  in  relation  to  what  was  to  him  so  vital  a  matter 
in  the  study  of  literature. 

After  beginning  by  entering  his  ‘  plea  ’  in  the  words 
quoted  above,  he  calls  attention  to  the  two  conceptions 
of  literary  criticism,  centring  as  they  do  in  the  difference 
between  the  functions  of  the  judge  and  the  investigator : 

The  one  is  the  inquiry  into  what  ought  to  he,  the 
other  the  inquiry  into  what  is.  Judicial  criticism 
compares  a  new  production  with  those  already  existing 
in  order  to  determine  whether  it  is  inferior  to  them  or 
surpasses  them  ;  criticism  of  investigation  makes  the 
same  comparison  for  the  purpose  of  identifying  the 
new  product  with  some  type  in  the  past,  or  differentiat¬ 
ing  it  and  registering  a  new  type.  Judicial  criticism  has 
a  mission  to  watch  against  variations  from  received 
canons ;  criticism  of  investigation  watches  for  new 
forms  to  increase  its  stock  of  species.  The  criticism  of 
taste  analyses  literary  works  for  grounds  of  preference 
or  evidence  on  which  to  found  judgements ;  inductive 
criticism  analyses  them  to  get  a  closer  acquaintance 
with  their  phenomena. 

The  gist  of  the  whole  matter  is  there  ;  and  no  further 
words  are  needed  to  enforce  the  distinction  as  a  principle 
of  literary  study  ;  but  it  would  be  easy  to  go  further  and 
enforce  its  importance  in  the  field  of  ethics  also.  Later 
we  shall  see  how  essentially  this  conception  of  criticism  is 
bound  up  with  the  whole  of  R.  G.  Moulton’s  disposition 
and  outlook  on  life.  Which  was  cause  and  which  was 
effect  :  did  the  temperament  give  birth  to  the  attitude  to 


48 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


criticism,  or  did  the  attitude  to  literature  project  itself 
into  wider  fields  ?  I  do  not  know,  and  it  would  be  futile 
to  speculate.  All  I  do  know  is  that  the  result  was  a 
singularly  harmonious  whole  ;  and  that  on  returning  to 
these  early  professions  of  his  literary  faith  one  is  con¬ 
stantly  made  to  feel  how  much  they  are  like  him. 

How  this  distinction  works  in  actual  experience  he 
shows  by  a  concrete  example.  He  takes  the  example  of 
Ben  Jonson,  who,  according  to  certain  judicial  critics, 
is  responsible  for  the  decay  of  the  English  drama  : 

Inductive  criticism  takes  objection  to  the  word 
*  decay  ’  as  suggesting  condemnation,  but  recognizes 
Ben  Jonson  as  the  beginner  of  a  new  tendency  in  our 
dramatic  history. 

But,  judicial  criticism  insists,  the  object  of  the  Drama 
is  to  portray  human  nature,  whereas  Ben  Jonson  has 
painted  not  men  but  caricatures. 

Induction  sees  that  this  formula  cannot  be  a  sufficient 
definition  of  the  Drama,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it 
does  not  take  in  Ben  Jonson  ;  its  own  mode  of  putting 
the  matter  is  that  Ben  Jonson  has  founded  a  school  of 
treatment  of  which  the  law  is  caricature. 

But  Ben  Jonson’s  caricatures  are  palpably  impossible. 

Induction  soon  satisfies  itself  that  their  point  lies  in 
their  impossibility  ;  they  constitute  a  new  mode  of 
portraying  qualities  of  character,  not  by  resemblance, 
but  by  analysing  and  intensifying  contrasts  to  make 
them  clearer. 

Judicial  criticism  can  see  how  the  poet  was  led 
astray  ;  the  bent  of  his  disposition  induced  him  to 
sacrifice  dramatic  propriety  to  his  satiric  purpose. 

Induction  has  another  way  of  putting  the  matter  : 
that  the  poet  has  utilized  dramatic  form  for  satiric 
purpose  ;  thus  by  the  ‘  cross-fertilization  ’  of  two 
existing  literary  species  he  has  added  to  literature  a 
third  including  features  of  both. 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


49 


At  all  events,  judicial  criticism  will  maintain,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  the  Shakespearean  mode  of  portraying 
is  infinitely  the  higher :  a  sign-painter,  as  Macaulay 
points  out,  can  imitate  a  deformity  of  feature,  while  it 
takes  a  great  artist  to  bring  out  delicate  shades  of 
expression. 

Inductive  treatment  knows  nothing  about  higher  or 
lower,  which  lie  outside  the  domain  of  science.  Its 
point  is  that  science  is  indebted  to  Ben  Jonson  for  a 
new  species  ;  if  the  new  species  be  an  easier  form  of  art 
it  does  not  on  that  account  lose  its  claim  to  be  analysed. 

The  critic  of  merit  can  always  fall  back  upon  taste  : 
who  would  not  prefer  Shakespeare  to  Ben  Jonson  ? 

But  even  from  this  point  of  view  scientific  treatment 
can  plead  its  own  advantages.  The  inductive  critic 
reaps  to  the  full  the  interest  of  Ben  Jonson,  to  which 
the  other  has  been  forcibly  closing  his  eyes  ;  while,  so 
far  from  liking  Shakespeare  the  less,  he  appreciates 
all  the  more  keenly  Shakespeare’s  method  of  treatment 
from  his  familiarity  with  that  which  is  its  antithesis. 

Even  the  most  hardened  adherent  of  the  old  order  will 
admit  that  this  little  bit  of  dialectical  warfare  succeeds 
in  establishing  for  inductive  criticism  not  only  a  right  to 
exist  but  a  very  good  case  for  itself.  This  is  further 
reinforced  by  the  reminder  that  the  judicial  spirit  is  a 
‘  barrier  to  appreciation,  as  being  opposed  to  that  delicacy 
of  receptiveness  which  is  a  first  condition  of  sensibility 
to  impressions  of  literature  and  art.’  If  a  passing  mood, 
or  uncomfortable  surroundings  may — and  do — induce 
unfavourable  estimates,  just  as  the  converse  may  induce 
favourable  ones,  does  it  not  stand  to  reason  that  a  pre¬ 
conceived  idea  of  the  inadmissibility  of  the  work  under 
consideration  precludes  a  true  vision  of  that  work  ? 

It  is  a  foundation  principle  in  art-culture,  as  well 
as  in  human  intercourse,  that  sympathy  is  the  grand 


D 


50 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


interpreter  :  secrets  of  beauty  will  unfold  themselves  to 
the  sunshine  of  sympathy,  while  they  will  wrap  them¬ 
selves  all  the  closer  against  the  tempest  of  sceptical 
questionings. 

The  whole  history  of  criticism  has  been  a  triumph 
of  authors  over  critics,  and  this  has  been  true  alike  with 
reference  to  music  and  literature.  It  is  needless  to  waste 
time  and  space  in  vindicating  a  proposition  which  to-day 
is  recognized  as  beyond  discussion  :  and,  after  all,  the  only 
aspect  of  the  matter  which  concerns  us  is  that  the  dis¬ 
comfiture  of  critics  at  the  bar  of  experience  is  an  over¬ 
whelming  proof  that  the  criticism  centring  in  taste — 
which  must  be  intensely  subjective  and  therefore  variable 
— cannot  be  taken  as  fulfilling  the  function  of  literary 
criticism  in  affording  an  insight  into  the  interpretation  of 
life. 

Having  thus  performed  the  negative  portion  of  his  task, 
R.  G.  Moulton  sets  himself  to  demonstrate  the  adequacy 
of  inductive  treatment  for  filling  the  place  for  which  the 
criticism  of  taste  has  been  found  wanting.  He  is  ready  to 
admit  at  once  that  the  difficulty  of  applying  the  inductive 
method  to  literature  lies  in  the  fact  that  instead  of 
ascertained  facts  we  have  to  face  '  details  which  leave 
conflicting  impressions  on  different  observers.’  But,  as 
he  points  out,  in  the  first  place  this  difficulty  is  by  no  means 
peculiar  to  literature,  and  instances  the  case  of  psychology  : 
it  may  be  noted  that,  in  the  forty  years  that  have  elapsed 
since  he  wrote,  the  element  of  variability  has  in  no  sense 
checked  the  development  of  an  inductive  science  which 
has  perhaps  made  more  remarkable  advance  than  any 
other  in  our  time.  In  the  second  place,  he  contends  that 

Interpretation  in  literature  is  of  the  nature  of  a  scientific 
hypothesis ,  the  truth  of  which  is  tested,  by  the  degree  of 
completeness  with  which  it  explains  the  details  of  the 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


5i 


literary  work  as  they  actually  stand.  That  will  be  the 
true  meaning  of  a  passage,  not  which  is  the  most  worthy, 
but  which  most  nearly  explains  the  words  as  they  are  ; 
that  will  be  the  true  reading  of  a  character  which,  how¬ 
ever  involved  in  expression  or  tame  in  effect,  accounts 
for  and  reconciles  all  that  is  represented  of  the  personage. 
The  inductive  critic  will  interpret  a  complex  situation, 
not  by  fastening  attention  on  its  striking  elements  and 
ignoring  others  as  oversights  and  blemishes,  but  by 
putting  together  with  business-like  exactitude  all  that 
the  author  has  given,  weighing,  balancing,  and  standing 
by  the  product.  He  will  not  consider  that  he  has  solved 
the  action  of  a  drama  by  some  leading  plot,  or  some 
central  idea  powerfully  suggested  in  different  parts, 
but  will  investigate  patiently  until  he  can  find  a  scheme 
which  will  give  point  to  the  inferior  as  well  as  to  the 
leading  scenes,  and  in  connexion  with  which  all  the 
details  are  harmonized  in  their  proper  proportions. 

Of  course  R.  G.  Moulton  was  well  aware  of  the  kind  of 
indictment  which  was  bound  to  be  brought  against  such 
an  attitude  to  creative  literature,  on  the  ground  that  it 
credits  the  author  with  far  more  of  purpose  than  he 
dreamed  of,  and  with  complicated  effects  and  recondite 
designs  which  formed  no  part  of  his  conscious  plan.  His 
answer  would  be  that  '  in  science  the  “  purpose  ”  of  a 
thing  is  the  purpose  it  actually  serves  and  is  discoverable 
only  by  analysis  ’  :  and  that  '  in  this  usage  alone  can  the 
words  "  purpose,”  “  intention  ”  be  properly  applied  to 
literature  and  art :  science  knows  no  kind  of  evidence  in 
the  matter  of  creative  purpose  so  weighty  as  the  thing  it 
has  actually  produced.’  One  outcome  of  such  a  position 
is  that  of  necessity  the  '  order-of-merit  criticism  ’  is  placed 
out  of  court  at  once,  for  the  conclusive  reason  that 
'  inductive  criticism  is  concerned  with  differences  of  kind 
as  distinguished  from  differences  of  degree,’  and  has 
therefore  no  concern  with  orders  of  merit  but  only  with 


52 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


literary  species  ;  and  in  that  contention  he  had  on  his  side 
one  no  less  than  Wordsworth,  who  had  maintained  that 
each  fresh  poet  is  to  be  tried  by  fresh  canons  of  taste.  The 
traditional  method  of  criticism  had  proceeded  on  the 
assumption  that  there  were  definite  laws  of  art,  and  that 
acceptance  or  rejection  was  conditioned  by  conformity 
with  those  laws.  But  ‘  law  ’  is  used  in  two  perfectly 
distinct  senses,  and  the  confusion  between  the  two  is 
responsible  for  much  of  the  misunderstanding  as  to  the 
function  of  criticism.  In  the  moral  and  political 
sense  laws  are  conditioned  by  a  ruler  or  legislative 
authority  : 

In  scientific  laws  the  law-giver  and  the  law-obeyer 
are  one  and  the  same,  and  for  the  laws  of  vegetation 
science  looks  no  further  than  the  facts  of  the  vegetable 
world.  In  literature  and  art  the  term  ‘  law  ’  applies  only 
in  the  scientific  sense  ;  the  laws  of  the  Shakespearean 
drama  are  not  laws  imposed  by  some  external 
authority  upon  Shakespeare,  but  laws  of  dramatic 
practice  derived  from  the  analysis  of  his  actual  works. 

Thus  he  contends  that 

In  inductive  criticism,  as  in  the  other  inductive  sciences, 
the  word  ‘  fault  ’  has  no  meaning.  If  an  artist  acts 
contrary  to  the  practice  of  all  other  artists,  the  result  is 
either  that  he  produces  no  art-effect  at  all,  in  which 
case  there  is  nothing  for  criticism  to  register  and  analyse, 
or  else  he  produces  a  new  effect,  and  is  thus  extending, 
not  breaking,  the  laws  of  art. 

In  the  book  w'hich  was  introduced  by  this  plea  for  the 
recognition  of  an  inductive  science  of  literary  criticism  he 
exhibits  the  method  in  actual  operation  on  the  dramatic 
analysis  of  certain  plays.  In  a  Table  setting  forth  the 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE  53 


leading  topics  of  dramatic  criticism  the  heads  of  the  larger 
groupings  are  given  (in  the  first  edition)  as  follows  : 


Character. 


’Single  Character-Interest  or  Character- 
Interpretation 
Complex  Character-Interest 
Character  Development 


Passion. 


Plot. 


(Single  Passion-Interest 
]  Complex  Passion-Interest  or  Passion-Tone 
(.Movement  (Motive  Force) 


(Single  Action 
Complex  Action 
Movement  (Motive  Form) 


In  the  light  of  this  scheme  of  topics  the  titles  of  the  twelve 
studies  which  form  the  bulk  of  the  book  will  evoke  no 
surprise.  Take  these  by  way  of  example  : 

I.  The  Two  Stories  Shakespeare  borrows  for  his 
‘  Merchant  of  Venice.’ 

A  Study  in  the  Raw  Material  of  the  Romantic  Drama. 

IV.  ‘Richard  III.’  :  A  Picture  of  Ideal  Villainy.  v' 

A  Shidy  in  Character-Interpretation. 

V.  ‘  Richard  III.’  :  How  Shakespeare  weaves  Nemesis 

into  History. 

A  Study  in  Plot. 

IX.  How  the  play  of  ‘  Julius  Caesar  ’  works  up  to  a 
climax  at  the  centre. 

A  Study  in  Passion  and  Movement. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  attempting  to  set  forth  R.  G. 
Moulton’s  teaching  in  relation  to  any  particular  literary 
masterpiece,  but  only  to  indicate  the  method  of  treatment 
pursued  and  the  topics  which  constituted,  in  his  opinion, 


54 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


the  subject-matter  on  which  the  inductive  science  of 
literary  criticism  was  employed.  What  has  been  said  will 
have  been  enough  to  serve  this  purpose,  and  also  to  prepare 
the  way  for  reference  to  the  width  of  the  field  he  covered. 
If  the  exposition  has  been  in  terms  of  Shakespearean 
drama,  that  is  only  because  in  his  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic 
Artist  he  first  enunciated  the  foundation  principles  of 
those  methods  of  study  and  interpretation  which — thirty 
years  later — we  find  completely  and  categorically 
expounded  in  The  Modern  Study  of  Literature.  In  the 
meantime  the  same  scientific  treatment  had  been 
followed  in  books  dealing  with  certain  groups  of  literary 
masterpieces.  These  books — The  Ancient  Classical 
Drama,  The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible,  Shakespeare  as 
a  Dramatic  Thinker,  and  World  Literature — he  describes 
in  1915  as  ‘  discussions  of  particular  principles  in  applica¬ 
tion  to  special  literary  fields.'1 

As  has  been  already  indicated,  the  field  over  which  R.  G. 
Moulton  pursued  his  method  of  literary  study  was  extra¬ 
ordinarily  wide  and  varied  ;  and  a  mere  catalogue  of  his 
lecture-subjects  affords  material  for  thought  and  reflection. 
But  it  will  be  conducive  to  definiteness  of  idea  if  the 
survey  is  confined,  to  begin  with  at  any  rate,  to  what 
he  calls  the  ‘  Literary  Bibles  ’  of  the  world  : 

The  great  religions  of  the  world  rest  each  on  its 
sacred  books  ;  it  seems  not  improper  to  extend  a  word 
familiar  in  this  connexion  to  collections  of  works 
holding  a  somewhat  analogous  position  in  the  purely 
literary  field.  In  its  full  conception,  the  word  ‘  bible ' 
combines  wide  range  of  literature  with  high  significance 
of  matter  and  some  sense  of  literary  unity  ;  it  further 
suggests  a  process  of  selection  already  accomplished 
by  evolution,  a  survival  of  the  spiritually  fittest.  View¬ 
ing  universal  literature  from  our  English  standpoint, 

1  Preface  to  The  Modern  Study  of  Literature,  p.  viii. 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


55 


it  appears  to  me  that  five  such  Literary  Bibles  may  be 
recognized.  The  first  is  of  course  the  Holy  Bible : 
this  comprehends  in  its  completeness  one  out  of  our 
two  ancestral  literatures.  For  the  other  ancestral 
literature,  the  Hellenic,  we  may,  I  think,  make  an 
approach  to  such  representation — but  only  an  approach 
— by  a  particular  combination  of  Classical  Epic  and 
Tragedy,  a  combination  which  will  give  us  a  unity,  and 
will  include  the  Classical  literature  which  has  most 
powerfully  influenced  the  poetry  of  succeeding  ages. 
Again,  from  the  English  point  of  view,  the  unique 
position  held  by  Shakespeare  suggests  a  third  Literary 
Bible.1  We  may  attain  a  fourth  if  we  place  side  by 
side,  as  two  elements  of  an  antithesis,  the  Divine  Comedy 
of  Dante  and  the  Paradise  Lost  of  Milton — the  supreme 
expression,  respectively,  of  Mediaeval  Catholicism  and  the 
Renaissance  Protestantism.  Once  more,  it  is  interesting 
to  note  how  the  Story  of  Faust,  welling  up  from  the 
fountain  of  mediaeval  legend,  has  attracted  the  highest 
minds  of  the  modem  world,  leading  to  successive  literary 
presentations  of  the  same  theme  varied  in  their  poetic 
dress,  and  still  more  contrasted  in  the  underlying 
philosophy  ;  these  Versions  of  the  Faust  Story  will  con¬ 
stitute  a  fifth  Literary  Bible.2 

Such  being  his  attitude  towards  these  five  fields  of  World 
Literature,  it  is  not  surprising  that  they  bulked  exceed¬ 
ingly  large  in  his  public  work,  both  within  the  University 


1  R.  G.  Moulton  would  have  read  with  the  deepest  interest  Dr.  C.  H. 
Herford’s  paper,  in  the  Bulletin  of  the  John  Rylands  Library  for  Jan., 
1925,  on  the  History  of  Shakespeare's  Influence  on  the  Continent. 
Although  written  from  a  diflerent  angle,  it  substantiates  his  contentions 
as  to  World  Literature,  and  of  Shakespeare’s  place  in  it.  One  can  quite 
imagine  his  saying  of  Shakespeare  that  the  history  of  his  influence  was 
*  part  of  the  history  of  Europe,  of  the  history  of  civilization,  of  the  history 
of  the  process  by  which  the  entire  complex  of  modern  belief  and  ideals 
were  evolved  ;  processes  in  which  the  work  of  Shakespeare  was  not 
merely  an  accompanying  circumstance  but  a  contributing  factor.’ 
(p.  20). 

2  World  Literature,  p.  53. 


56 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


and  in  University  Extension  classes,  in  England  and 
America  alike.  They  gave  him  the  outstanding  examples 
of  the  points  which  he  desired  to  make,  although  he  found 
in  all  the  literatures  of  the  world,  and  drew  from  all  ages, 
confirmation  and  illustration  of  the  main  principles.  It 
was  on  Shakespeare  that  he  worked  out  his  conception  of 
inductive  science  of  criticism  in  the  first  instance,  and  to 
Shakespeare  he  never  tired  of  returning — and  neither  did  his 
audiences.  His  treatment  of  the  Ancient  Classical  Drama  as 
a  subject  for  lecture  courses  was  completely  vindicated  by 
its  power  to  hold  audiences  of  widely  different  types — in 
University  Extension  courses  ;  in  University  classes  and  in 
University  lectures  ‘  open  to  the  public  ’ ;  in  exclusive 
Literary  Clubs  and  important  gatherings  of  teachers,  &c. 
Faust  satisfied  him  best  when  he  could  give  a  whole  course 
of  ten  or  twelve  lectures  to  the  subject,  though  he  very 
often  would  give  an  exceedingly  effective  single  lecture  on 
it,  in  which  case  he  confined  his  attention  to  Marlowe’s 
Faustus.  Perhaps  the  fourth  of  the  Literary  Bibles 
occupied  him  less  in  his  public  work  than  the  other  four  ; 
and  the  reason  may  well  have  been  that  he  felt  very 
strongly  the  supreme  advantage  of  linking  the  two  works 
— which  was  not  easy,  unless  time  was  no  object  ! 

Dante’s  great  poem  gains  infinitely  if  it  be  read  in 
antithesis  with  the  Paradise  Lost  of  Milton.  ...  In 
their  two  great  works  these  poets  are  not  treating 
special  themes  ;  each  is  giving  his  poetic  construction 
of  the  sum  of  things  as  seen  by  him.  And  each  is 
fully  equipped  for  the  task.  The  two  poems  then  will 
differ  according  to  the  two  ages  they  are  reflecting  ;  and 
these  two  ages  are  ancestral  periods  in  our  own  mental 
history.  What  makes  the  combination  of  the  Divine 
Comedy  and  the  Paradise  Lost  into  a  literary  bible  is 
that  they  give  us  complete  revelation  in  creative 
poetry  of  supplementary  stages  through  which  our  own 


THE  STUDY  OF  LITERATURE 


57 


literary  evolution  has  passed  ;  they  enable  us  to  think 
the  thoughts  of  the  men  of  those  times,  to  look  upon 
the  universe  with  their  mental  attitudes,  to  live  over 
again  for  a  moment  their  sympathies  and  antipathies,  to 
shape  the  appearances  and  impressions  of  things  as 
these  seemed  to  eyes  that  at  the  time  actually  looked 
upon  them.1 

If  Dante  is  the  prophet  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  his 
poem  the  ‘  representation  of  Catholicism  in  high  literature,’ 2 
then  it  is  equally  true  that  Milton  ‘  represents  in  himself 
the  whole  range  of  the  Renaissance  ;  he  is  the  best  type 
of  classical  scholar,  and  he  is  the  best  type  of  Puritanism.’3 
These  propositions  R.  G.  Moulton  worked  out  with  great 
elaborateness,  and  succeeded  in  giving  a  new  interest  to 
Paradise  Lost.  This  gist  of  his  argument  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  fourth  chapter  of  his  World  Literature. 

It  is  not  at  all  surprising  that  the  Faust  story  should 
have  attracted  one  who  had  so  keen  a  sense  of  the  dramatic 
as  R.  G.  Moulton  :  and  certainly  few  of  his  literary 
interpretations  have  left  so  vivid  an  impression  on  the 
minds  of  his  hearers  as  his  presentation  of  that  story.  As 
one  of  his  Faust  audiences  was  passing  out  of  the  hall 
after  the  lecture,  two  appreciations  happened  to  be 
uttered  within  five  minutes  in  the  hearing  of  one  member 
of  the  class.  ‘  It’s  the  best  sermon  I  ever  heard.’  ‘  It’s 
as  good  as  going  to  the  theatre  !  ’  The  two  criticisms  are 
in  no  sense  antithetic  or  mutually  exclusive  :  they  only 
witness  to  an  interpretation  which  was  an  arresting 
‘  criticism  of  life,’  in  regard  to  an  issue  of  transcendent 
spiritual  importance.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ? 

Reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  the  Story  of  Faust  is 
an  attempt  to  realize  in  concrete  life  one  of  the  simplest 
verses  of  Scripture  :  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he 

1  World,  Literature,  p.  179.  2  Ibid.,  p.  180.  3  Ibid.,  p.  195. 


5« 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  soul  ?  Familiarity 
has  dulled  the  edge  of  this  biblical  aphorism  ;  if  we 
press  its  language,  the  short  verse  is  seen  to  involve 
three  ideas  of  colossal  import,  alike  to  the  thinker  and 
the  poetic  interpreter  of  life.  First  :  What  is  it  to  gain 
the  whole  world  ?  The  gain  of  a  fortune  or  a  kingdom 
is  enough  for  most  stories ;  the  gaining  of  the 
whole  world  tasks  the  imagination  to  its  depths  to  find 
for  it  any  visible  form  in  which  it  can  be  intelligibly 
embodied.  Again,  it  is  a  sufficiently  serious  question, 
What  is  it  to  lose  the  soul  ?  But  a  third  stumbling- 
block  to  the  imagination  lurks  in  the  word  ‘  profit  ’  : 
the  conception  of  barter,  gain  and  loss,  the  machinery 
of  the  market,  in  association  with  such  ideas  as  the  world 
and  the  soul.1 

The  many-sidedness  of  the  story,  which,  as  R.  G. 
Moulton  says,  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  floating 
literature  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  it  was  natural  to  men 
to  do  their  thinking  in  story  form,  is  forcibly  brought 
home  by  his  exposition  of  the  different  channels  of 
approach  by  Marlowe,  Calderon,  Goethe,  and  Bailey — 
whose  Festus  he  valued  very  highly,  in  which  judgement  he 
stands  supported  by  Tennyson.  This  is  not  the  place  for 
even  outlining  his  exposition  of  these  various  presentations 
of  the  great  central  theme.  My  only  concern  is  to  outline 
the  subject-matter  upon  which  he  based,  in  the  main,  his 
teaching  as  to  Literature  as  a  criticism  of  Life. 


1  World  Literature,  p.  221. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible. 

I  have,  of  set  purpose,  abstained  so  far  from  any  reference 
to  R.  G.  Moulton’s  work  on  the  literary  study  of  the 
Bible,  which  bulked  so  large  in  the  last  thirty  years  of 
his  teaching  career,  and  by  which  he  came  to  be  known 
perhaps  more  widely  than  by  anything  else.  Even  in  his 
undergraduate  days  he  had  a  great  interest  in  the  literary 
side  of  the  Bible,  and  in  the  eighties  certain  very  pro¬ 
nounced  ideas  began  to  take  shape  in  his  mind  concerning 
Bible  literature  viewed  solely  from  the  point  of  view  of 
literary  considerations,  as  distinct  from  the  devotional  or 
theological.  It  was  not  that  he  sat  loosely  to  these  things 
or  belittled  the  spiritual  significance  of  Holy  Scripture. 
Far  from  it ;  but  he  felt  strongly  that  there  was  another 
angle  of  approach  which  had  been  strangely  neglected,  and 
which  had  its  own  contribution  to  bring  to  the  under¬ 
standing  of  the  Books  ;  and  that  the)'  were  of  a  character 
to  respond  to  inductive  methods  of  literary  criticism  as 
were  other  masterpieces.  Moreover,  through  a  wide 
acceptance  and  use  of  the  inductive  literary  method  of 
interpretation  he  could  see  the  ultimate  removal  of  many 
causes  of  dissension.  It  was  with  such  convictions  as 
these  that  he  threw  himself  into  the  great  piece  of  work 
involved  in  the  investigation  of  Biblical  literary  forms, 
and  the  incorporation  of  his  results  in  The  Literary  Study 
of  the  Bible  and  The  Modern  Reader’s  Bible.  Of  course 
scholars  had  long  realized  that  the  Bible  is  made  up  of 


59 


6o 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


works  in  various  literary  forms,  and  the  reflection  of  certain 
discoveries  in  successive  versions  of  the  whole  or  of 
particular  parts  had  brought  nearer  the  time  when  an 
attempt  might  be  made  at  a  full  presentation  of  the  Books 
with  due  regard  to  literary  structure.  The  event,  however, 
of  largest  importance  in  this  connexion  was  the  com¬ 
pletion  of  the  work  of  the  English  revisers,  which  thus 
made  generally  available  a  version  of  the  Bible  and  the 
Apocrypha  in  which — among  many  important  changes — 
the  distinction  between  verse  and  prose  is  recognized,  and 
continuity  of  thought  is  restored  in  parts  where  it  had  been 
obscured  in  the  earlier  versions.  But  it  was  left  for  R.  G. 
Moulton  to  carry  these  ideas  to  altogether  new  and  far- 
reaching  conclusions  :  and  having  done  so,  he  ‘  brought 
them  down  from  the  study  to  the  street ' — to  borrow  the 
expressive  phrase  of  Bacon. 

Three  main  convictions  dominated  him  in  relation  to 
this  Bible  literature :  (i)  That  the  Bible  is  the  peer  of 

the  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome  as  literature,  quite  inde¬ 
pendently  of  all  questions  as  to  the  admission  of  its 
supernatural  character  and  authority,  (ii)  That  the 
traditional  presentation  of  the  Bible  is  fatal  to  any  adequate 
appreciation  of  its  literary  character,  (iii)  That  a  due 
recognition  of  literary  forms  in  Bible  literature  is  in  the 
highest  degree  conducive  to  the  fuller  understanding  of 
its  message. 

To  him  it  was  self-evident  that  the  literatures  inspired 
by  the  Hellenic  and  Hebraic  spirits  were  ‘  the  ancestral 
literatures  of  our  modern  English  culture,’  and  that  ‘  he 
who  is  content  to  leave  the  Bible  unstudied  stands  con¬ 
victed  as  a  half-educated  man.’1  He  was  prepared, 
moreover,  to  maintain  this  position  quite  without  reference 
to  historical  criticism  on  the  one  hand  or  religious 
scepticism  on  the  other.  Literary  appreciation  is 

1  World  Literature,  pp.  26,  98. 


THE  LITERARY  STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE  6r 


concerned  with  the  ‘  what  ’  and  not  with  the  ‘  how  ’  of 
literature  ;  and  for  the  purpose  which  he  had  immediately 
in  hand,  no  questions  of  inspiration,  revelation,  or  critical 
analysis  of  sources  came  under  consideration.  But  he 
felt  more  strongly  than  most  how  hopeless  it  was  to  expect 
any  recognition  of  this  outstanding  excellence  of  Bible 
literature  until  it  was  presented  with  some  adequate  regard 
to  literary  form.  This  twin  sense,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
supreme  literary  qualities  of  the  Bible,  and  of  the  mis¬ 
leading  character  of  its  presentation,  grew  upon  him  and 
became  one  of  the  great  determining  influences  of  his  career. 
In  1917,  after  about  thirty  years  of  close  application  to 
the  literary  study  of  the  Bible,  and  having  seen  the  subject 
at  work  in  the  minds  of  vastly  varied  audiences  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic,  he  writes  : 

Literature  necessarily  involves  specific  literary  forms 
— epic,  lyric,  drama,  essay,  history,  oratory,  and  the 
like  :  these  literary  forms  are  the  key  to  literary  inter¬ 
pretation.  In  the  case  of  the  Bible,  these  literary  forms 
were  swept  out  of  existence  in  the  centuries  which 
separate  us  from  the  original  authors  of  biblical  literature. 
The  story  is  a  simple  one,  yet  seems  to  be  little  known. 
We  live  in  an  age  in  which  the  printed  page  reflects  so 
exactly  variations  of  form  that  we  need  to  give  as  little 
attention  to  form  as  to  the  attraction  of  gravitation. 
We  are  likely  to  forget  that  manuscripts  of  all  languages 
prior  to  about  the  first  or  second  century  of  the  Christian 
era  were  wholly  destitute  of  form  :  pages  covered  with 
alphabetical  letters  not  divided  into  words,  still  less 
into  sentences,  with  no  divisions  of  speeches  in  dialogue 
or  names  of  speakers,  or  differences  of  verse  and  prose. 
In  manuscripts  of  this  kind  all  literary  forms,  from 
straightforward  narrative  to  brilliant  dialogue,  would 
look  exactly  alike.  But  a  difference  arises.  Greek  or 
Indian  manuscripts  were  in  the  hands  of  literary  men, 
who  in  spite  of  the  manuscripts  were  keenly  sensitive  to 


62 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


niceties  of  form  :  when  the  advance  came  in  the  art  of 
writing  that  made  the  written  page  vary  with  the 
form,  the  form  these  men  gave  to  their  literature  was 
its  proper  form,  Homer  coming  out  as  epic,  Sophocles 
as  drama.  But  at  the  corresponding  period  the  Bible 
was  in  the  custody  of  men  who  were  anything  but 
literary:  scribes  and  rabbis  to  whom  the  Bible  was 
material  for  commentary,  each  clause  a  subject  for 
disquisition,  as  we  know  that  the  shortest  text  may 
begin  the  longest  sermon.  Accordingly,  when  the 
advance  in  the  art  of  writing  reached  them,  the  form 
they  gave  to  their  Bible  was  that  of  numbered  texts 
for  comment,  and  in  this  form  of  texts  for  comment  it 
has  come  down  to  us.  Thus  modem  Bibles  are  a  mis¬ 
representation  of  the  real  Bible  ;  a  double  misrepre¬ 
sentation,  at  once  lacking  the  literary  forms  of  song  or 
dialogue  essential  for  interpretation,  and  stamping  the 
whole  with  the  appearance  of  numbered  texts  and 
chapters  which  does  not  belong  to  the  original  literature, 
but  was  the  creation  of  mediaeval  commentators.  .  .  . 

Scholars,  it  will  be  said,  know  better.  They  do  ;  but 
here  arises  the  second  of  the  revolutionary  accidents. 
The  modem  vivification  of  method  struck  the  study  of 
history  a  full  generation  before  it  struck  the  study  of 
literature.  Hence,  in  the  case  of  the  Bible,  the  historic 
analysis  which  goes  below  the  literary  surface  of  Scrip¬ 
ture  to  the  earlier  documents  from  which  much  of  it 
was  compiled.  This  ‘  higher  criticism  ’  has  achieved 
great  results  in  its  proper  province,  which  is  Semitic 
history  :  its  effect  on  literature  has  been  unfortunate, 
as  diverting  general  culture  from  literature  to  history, 
and  favouring  what  is  a  besetting  temptation  of  the 
study  of  literature  at  all  times — the  temptation  to 
substitute  the  study  of  literary  origins,  which  is  one 
thing,  for  the  study  of  the  literature  itself,  which  is 
another  thing  altogether. 

Of  course,  the  matter  of  this  Bible  has  always  engrossed 
the  general  mind ;  it  has  worked  wonders  and  laid  the 


THE  LITERARY  STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE 


63 


foundations  of  our  modern  spiritual  life.  Unfortunately, 
it  has  gone  farther  than  this  :  it  has  also  laid  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  the  theological  and  ecclesiastical  systems  that 
confront  each  other  in  intrenched  camps.  And  the 
effect  of  this — if  we  may  interpret  men’s  minds  by  their 
actions — is  as  if  it  were  said  :  ‘  Rather  than  let  biblical 
literature  be  taught  by  followers  of  the  wrong  orthodoxy, 
let  us  leave  it  out  of  higher  education  altogether  !  ’ 
This  is  the  third  of  the  external  obstructions  in  the 

way  of  literary  study . 

In  view  of  all  this  it  becomes  necessary  to  insist  at 
every  opportunity  that  there  can  be  no  true  study  of 
literature  in  the  foundation  of  which  biblical  does  not 
stand  on  equal  terms  with  classical  literature.  The 
culture  of  our  modern  world,  notwithstanding  its  self- 
complacency,  needs  reminding  that  it  is  in  truth  only  a 
half-baked  culture,  affecting  the  language  of  breadth 
and  completeness  when  all  the  while  a  major  factor  in 
its  evolution  has  been  altogether  ignored.1 

He  gives  a  striking  illustration  of  this  in  his  Preface  to  his 
Modern  Reader’s  Bible.  He  presents  Hosea  xiv,  5-8  in 
three  different  forms  :  (i)  after  the  fashion  of  the  ancient 
manuscript ;  (ii)  after  the  fashion  of  the  Authorized 
Version  ;  (iii)  in  accordance  with  literary  form  : 


(i) 


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Study  of  Literature  and 

the 

Intel 

’ ration  of  Knowledge. 

See  p.  42. 

64 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


ALLBEAST 
H  R  A  I  MS  HA 
OANYMORE 
WE  R  E  D  A  N  D 
I  K  E  A  G  R  E  E 
HYFRUI  TF 


H  E  W  I  N  E  O  F 
LLSAYWHA 
WI  T  H  I  D  O  L 
W  I  L  L  R  E  G  A 
N  F  I  R  T  R  E  E 
O  U  N  D 


LEBANONEP 
THAVEI  TOD 
SI  HAVEANS 
R  D  H  I  MI  AML 
FROMMEI  ST 


(ii) 

5.  I  will  be  as  the  dew  unto  Israel :  he  shall  blossom 
as  the  lily,  and  cast  forth  his  roots  as  Lebanon. 

6.  His  branches  shall  spread,  and  his  beauty  shall  be 
as  the  olive  tree,  and  his  smell  as  Lebanon. 

7.  They  that  dwell  under  his  shadow  shall  return  ; 
they  shall  revive  as  the  com,  and  blossom  as  the  vine  : 
the  scent  thereof  shall  be  as  the  wine  of  Lebanon. 

8.  Ephraim  shall  say,  What  have  I  to  do  any  more 
with  idols  ?  I  have  answered,  and  will  regard  him  : 
I  am  like  a  green  fir  tree  ;  from  me  is  thy  fruit  found. 

(Hi) 

A  Dramatic  Dialogue  between  Jehovah  and 

Ephraim. 

The  Lord. 

I  will  be  as  the  dew  unto  Israel :  he  shall  blossom  as 
the  lily,  and  cast  forth  his  roots  as  Lebanon.  His 
branches  shall  spread,  and  his  beauty  shall  be  as  the 
olive  tree,  and  his  smell  as  Lebanon.  They  that  dwell 
under  his  shadow  shall  return  ;  they  shall  revive  as  the 
com,  and  blossom  as  the  vine  :  the  scent  thereof  shall 
be  as  the  wine  of  Lebanon. 

Ephraim. 

What  have  I  to  do  any  more  with  idols  ? 

The  Lord. 

I  have  answered,  and  will  regard  him. 


THE  LITERARY  STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE  65 

Ephraim. 

I  am  like  a  green  fir  tree. 

The  Lord. 

From  me  is  thy  fruit  found. 

The  recognition  and  presentation  of  the  various  literary 
forms  in  the  Bible  enabled  him  to  impart  a  new  vividness 
and  reality  to  familiar  tracts  of  Scripture.  Take,  for 
example,  his  exposition  of  the  dramatic  element  in  the 
Old  Testament.  Drama  is  not  looked  for  in  Hebrew 
literature  because  the  Hebrew  people  had  no  theatre. 
But  that  simply  means  that  the  dramatic  instinct,  common 
to  humanity,  found  a  different  channel  of  expression  ; 
and,  indeed,  succeeded  in  permeating  all  forms  of  literature. 
He  was  able  to  show  how,  especially  in  the  rhapsodic 
outbursts  of  the  prophets, 

the  workings  of  Divine  Providence  are  made  to  pass 
before  the  mental  eye  with  all  the  intensity  of  dramatic 
movement.  The  actors  of  these  spiritual  scenes  include 
God,  the  Celestial  Hosts,  the  Nations  of  the  earth,  Israel 
or  Zion  personified,  the  Watchmen  of  Jerusalem  bearing 
tidings  from  abroad  ;  with  less  of  personality  Voices 
carry  on  the  dialogue,  Voices  of  the  Saved  or  the 
Doomed,  Voices  from  the  East  and  the  West,  Cries  from 
the  Hills  of  Ephraim  or  from  outside  the  Holy  Land  ; 
impersonal  songs  break  in  at  intervals,  like  chorales  in 
modem  oratorio,  to  spiritually  celebrate  the  action 
that  is  passing.  The  changing  scenes  are  beheld  in 
vision,  or  described  by  the  prophetic  spectator.  The 
movement  may  be  successive  stages  of  advancing  doom, 
changing,  as  in  Joel,  into  equally  regular  stages  of 
salvation.  Or  it  may  be  sudden  :  the  sight  of  the 
Chaldeans  stalking  triumphant  through  the  earth  gives 
place  to  the  sound  from  the  distant  future  of  the  victims 
triumphing  over  Chaldea’s  fall ;  the  pall  of  destruction 
is  rent  to  display  the  mountain  of  salvation  bright  with 
E 


66 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


sunshine  and  song.  Of  course  such  spiritual  scenes 
are  less  easy  to  follow  than  the  drama  of  ordinary  life 
that  can  realize  itself  upon  a  visible  stage.  But  what 
is  lost  in  simplicity  is  less  than  what  is  gained  in  the 
wide  reaches  of  spiritual  movement  and  solemnity  of 
import.  Perhaps  the  dramatic  masterpiece  of  universal 
literature  is  the  '  Rhapsody  of  Zion  Redeemed,’  which 
makes  the  latter  half  of  our  book  of  Isaiah.1 

These  conceptions  of  the  Bible  he  was  wont  to  set  forth 
in  lectures  and  in  what  he  st)ded  ‘  interpretative  recitals  ' ; 
and  there  was  no  shadow  of  doubt  as  to  whether  there  was 
a  demand  for  that  kind  of  treatment.  From  the  very 
moment  that  he  began  to  offer  courses  of  lectures  along 
those  lines  there  was  an  eager  and  increasing  interest 
manifested  in  the  subject.  Reference  has  already  been 
made  to  his  practice  of  blending  the  lecture  and  the  recital 
for  the  purpose  of  interpreting  a  Greek  play,  even 
presenting  the  whole  of  the  Trilogy  of  ^Eschylus  in  a  two 
hours’  lecture-recital.  He  now  applied  the  same  method 
of  treatment  to  portions  of  the  Bible,  and  probably  no 
single  achievement  of  his  awakened  more  widespread 
admiration  than  his  presentation  of  the  Book  of  Job. 
Mingled  narration,  interpretation,  and  recitation  brought 
the  whole  book  within  the  compass  of  an  hour’s  lecture, 
without  the  loss  of  anything  essential  to  its  understanding  : 
and  Dr.  Holland  Rose  does  not  use  extravagant  language 
of  eulogy  when  he  speaks  of  ‘  audiences  enthralled  and 
uplifted  by  this  literary  magician.’  The  same  was  true  of 
his  presentation  of  the  ‘  Rhapsody  of  Zion  Redeemed  ’ 
and  of  Deuteronomy. 

But  it  was  on  his  Modern  Readers  Bible  that  R.  G. 
Moulton  mainly  relied  for  the  furtherance  of  these  views 
concerning  the  presentation  of  the  Bible.  His  lectures  in 
the  early  nineties  and  the  publication  of  The  Literary 
1  World.  Literature,  pp.  66,  67. 


THE  LITERARY  STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE  67 

Study  of  the  Bible  in  1895  had  increased  interest  in  the 
subject ;  and  how  this  led  to  the  working  out  in  detail 
of  the  principles  then  laid  down  is  told  in  his  How  to  Read 
the  Bible  :  the  various  extensions  of  the  plan  made  to 
meet  the  needs  and  wishes  of  teachers  and  particular 
classes  of  students  are  also  indicated  : 

The  initiation  of  what  subsequently  became  The 
Modern  Reader’s  Bible  was  in  a  letter  from  the  President 
of  the  Macmillan  Co.  of  New  York  (Hon.  George  P.  Brett) 
to  the  present  Editor,  who  in  a  recent  work  of  his  had 
discussed  the  question  of  presenting  Scripture  to  the  eye 
in  conformity  with  the  printed  page  of  modern  books.  .  .  . 

The  Macmillan  Company,  by  way  of  experiment, 
published  in  succession  four  small  volumes,  representing 
the  Books  of  Wisdom  in  the  Bible  (and  Apocrypha). 
Literary  Introductions  and  Notes  were  furnished  by 
the  Editor.  The  reception  was  so  far  encouraging  that 
the  series  of  small  volumes  was  gradually  extended  to 
take  in  the  whole  of  the  Bible — twenty-one  volumes  in 
all.  The  series,  which  had  commenced  in  1895,  was 
completed  in  1898.  Later  (in  1907)  the  contents  of  the 
twenty-one  volumes  were  put  together  in  the  one- 
volume  edition  of  the  Modern  Reader’s  Bible.  Adapta¬ 
tion  of  the  material  for  young  people  furnished  three 
more  of  the  small  volumes.  ...  It  may  be  added  that, 
recently,  an  important  variation  of  the  main  work  has 
appeared  in  The  Modern  Reader’s  Bible  for  Schools,  in 
two  volumes  of  New  Testament  (1920)  and  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  (1922).  The  term  ‘  schools  ’  must  be  understood 
to  include  educational  institutions,  elementary  or 
advanced  ;  and  in  what  was  put  forward  as  an  educa¬ 
tional  work  it  has  seemed  legitimate  to  employ,  with 
caution,  the  expository  device  of  abridgement.  This 
Modern  Reader’s  Bible  for  Schools  is  an  ‘  Abridged 
Bible.’1 


1  How  to  read  the  Bible,  pp.  23-25 


68 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


The  nature  of  this  work  will  have  been  inferred  from 
what  has  already  been  said  about  the  misrepresentation 
of  the  Books  of  the  Bible  in  our  traditional  versions. 
Without  making  an  attempt  in  the  matter  of  altered 
translations  it 

presents  to  the  eye  each  part  of  the  Bible  in  its  proper 
literary  form  and  detailed  structure  ;  doing  thus  for  the 
sacred  Scriptures  what,  as  a  matter  of  course,  is  done 
for  all  other  literature,  ancient  and  modern,  by  the 
arrangement  of  the  printed  page.1 

While  there  are  only  slight  deviations  from  the  Revised 
Version,  and  no  attempt  at  exegesis,  there  is  a  degree  of 
modification  in  respect  of  the  order  in  which  the  books  are 
placed,  the  purpose  being  to  make  more  clear  to  the  reader 
the  spiritual  unity  of  the  Bible  as  ‘  the  autobiography  of 
our  holy  religion.’  This  he  expressed  in  a  single  sentence 
when  he  described  the  Bible  as  ‘  A  Drama  in  two  Acts, 
•with  an  Interlude.’ 

Act  I.  The  Old  Testament  :  A  Covenant  between  God 
and  a  Chosen  People.  A  National  Theocracy. 

Interlude.  The  Wisdom  Literature  : 

Devout  Meditation  on  Human  Life. 

Act  II.  The  New  Testament  :  A  Covenant  between  God 
and  Individual  Hearts.  The  Kingdom  of  God 
within  us. 

It  is  not  surprising  that,  with  such  a  conception  of 
Biblical  literature,  he  should  stress  the  importance  of 
reading  a  book  at  a  sitting.  No  one  would  dream  of  under¬ 
rating  the  value  of  exegesis  for  the  appreciation  of  the 
Bible,  particularly  in  respect  of  its  presentation  of  doctrinal 
truth  :  but  it  must  always  be  remembered  that  the  exe- 
getical  method,  with  its  constant  pauses  over  details  and 

1  How  to  read  the  Bible,  p  21. 


THE  LITERARY  STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE  69 

its  dependence  upon  annotations  and  the  like,  is  fatal  to 
the  acquisition  of  a  sense  of  perspective.  As  he  puts  it 
himself : 

Two  different  modes  of  exegesis  invite  the  student  : 
one  studies  the  whole  in  the  light  of  the  details,  the 
other  the  details  in  the  light  of  the  whole.  The  first 
is  the  method  of  commentators  :  they  seek  to  come  to 
close  quarters  with  each  successive  clause,  and  con¬ 
centrate  upon  it  light  from  all  departments  of  investiga¬ 
tion,  confident  that  to  master  the  details  is  to  know 
the  whole.  .  .  The  interpreter  of  the  other  kind  takes 
his  stand  at  such  a  distance  that  the  whole  work  can  be 
surveyed  at  once  :  he  sweeps  over  the  whole  ground  again 
and  again,  and  yet  again  ;  at  first  with  imperfect  grasp 
and  a  sense  of  much  that  is  passed  over  unexplained, 
yet  with  each  repetition  finding  more  and  more  resolve 
into  the  common  unity,  while  from  first  to  last  he  has 
been  keeping  firm  hold  of  that  foundation  element  of 
true  thoroughness  which  we  call  perspective.  Undoubt¬ 
edly  the  best  scholarship  will  keep  side  by  side  the 
exegesis  of  perspective  and  the  exegesis  of  detail :  but 
in  the  present  condition  of  biblical  study,  in  which 
concentration  on  ‘  verses  '  has  almost  smothered  per¬ 
ception  of  literary  '  works,’  there  is  no  question  that  it 
is  the  rapid  survey  of  whole  books  that  needs  emphasiz¬ 
ing.1 

The  very  high  place  which  he  assigned  to  ‘  The  Rhapsody 
of  Zion  Redeemed,’  -  which  was  his  designation  for  Isaiah 
xl-lxvi,  calls  for  a  measure  of  attention  to  be  given  to  it 
here  as  a  literary  type,  and  his  treatment  of  it  as  character¬ 
istic  of  his  method  of  inductive  analysis.  The  importance 
of  it  lies  partly  in  the  fact  that  it  is  wrapped  up  with  his 
whole  conception  of  the  dramatic  in  literature.  He 
frequently  stressed  the  point  that  whereas  Hebrew 

1  The  Modern  Reader's  Bible,  p  1507 

2  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible,  p.  435  ;  World  Literature,  pp.  66,  82-4. 


70 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


literature  has  not  developed  a  separate  and  distinct 
drama  ;  yet 

as  if  to  compensate  for  this,  the  dramatic  impulse  is 
found  in  Hebrew  to  invade  other  regions  of  literature, 
including  such  departments  as  might  have  seemed  most 
impervious  to  it.  The  current  finding  no  channel  has 
spread  and  diffused  itself.  The  reader  of  the  Bible 
knows  that  he  will  find  in  it  no  acted  play  like  the  plays 
of  Shakespeare.  But  on  the  other  hand  he  will  find 
lyric  poems  specially  dramatic  in  tone,  and  in  Solomon’s 
Song  a  lyric  idyll  that  impresses  some  of  its  readers  as  a 
complete  drama.  He  will  find,  again,  philosophy  taking 
a  dramatic  shape.  In  the  Book  of  Job  the  dramatic 
form  reaches  an  intensity  not  exceeded  in  any  literature  ; 
yet  even  here  there  is  no  independent  drama,  but  the 
dramatized  discussion  is  made  to  rest  on  a  basis  of  epic 
story.  What  is  still  more  surprising,  the  discourses 
of  prophecy  are  found  to  be  leavened  by  the  dramatic 
spirit,  and  that  most  concentrated  form  of  Hebrew 
prophecy  which  will  in  this  work  be  called  the  Rhapsody 
is  pre-eminent  in  the  closeness  with  which  it  approaches 
to  drama.1 

We  are  therefore  challenged  to  reconsider  our  conception 
of  drama  as  being  of  necessity  conditioned  by  presentation 
on  the  stage.  True,  it  is  a  literary  form  in  which  action 
predominates  ;  but,  as  R.  G.  Moulton  was  fond  of  saying, 
the  dramatic  movement  of  the  Bible  has  for  its  stage  the 
whole  universe,  for  its  period  all  time  ;  God  is  the  Hero  of 
this  drama,  and  its  plot  is  Divine  Providence.  It  may  be 
claimed,  perhaps,  that  nowhere  does  his  treatment  of 
Bible  literature  make  a  richer  contribution  to  interpreta¬ 
tion  than  here  ;  for  although  his  presentation  of  the 
Book  of  Job  aroused  most  attention  and  called  forth  most 
admiration,  yet  his  presentation  of  Isaiah  xl-lxvi  may  be 


1  The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bihle,  pp.  108-9. 


THE  LITERARY  STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE  71 


said  to  have  been  more  characteristic,  more  far-reaching, 
more  effective — because  more  necessary — as  a  vindication 
of  the  value  of  the  study  of  literary  form.  The  greater 
necessity  arises  from  the  difficulty  of  arriving  at  a  concep¬ 
tion  of  unity  for  the  whole  work,  while  no  one  can  be 
insensible  to  the  wondrous  charm  and  power  of  its  several 
parts.  The  Rhapsody,  which,  while  partaking  of  the 
nature  of  all  literary  forms,  is  tied  down  to  none  of  them, 
has  therefore  peculiar  advantages  of  its  own  for  the 
presentation  of  a  theme  which  marks  an  advance,  but  one 
in  which  the  movement  is  not  steady  or  uniform,  there 
being  oft-recurrent  alternation  of  the  motifs  of  judgement 
and  salvation.  The  advance  presents  itself  in  seven 
Visions,  not  successive  entirely,  but  partly  concurrent  and 
partly  successive,  but  each  one  needing  to  be  exhibited 
before  the  action  is  consummated.  The  seven  ‘  visions 
he  differentiates  are  as  follows  : 

i. 

The  Servant  of  Jehovah  Delivered  from  Bondage. 

ii. 

The  Servant  of  Jehovah  Awakened. 

iii. 

Zion  Awakened. 

iv. 

The  Servant  of  Jehovah  Exalted. 

v. 

Zion  Exalted. 

vi. 

Redemption  at  Work  in  Zion. 

vii. 

The  Day  of  Judgement. 


72  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

Note  that  the  sixth  (for  example)  cannot  be  set  down 
categorically  as  either  preceding  or  following  those  stand¬ 
ing  before  it,  but  it  embraces  the  whole  action  looked  at 
from  a  particular  point  of  view. 

After  a  Prelude  in  which  Voices  alike  of  Good  Tidings 
and  of  Despondency  are  heard,  the  first  of  the  Visions 
comes  on  the  scene  : 

The  nations  are  summoned  to  appear  before  the  bar 
of  God,  who  challenges  the  idols  ‘  to  declare  former 
things,  to  show  things  to  come  ’  ;  in  other  words,  to 
put  an  intei  pretation  upon  the  whole  course  of  events 
from  first  to  last.  Clearly  it  is  a  Divine  philosophy  of 
history  that  we  are  receiving  in  dramatic  form.  When 
the  idols  are  dumb,  Jehovah’s  interpretation  is  given. 
He  proclaims  Israel  as  His  servant  :  the  service  is  to 
bring  the  nations  under  His  law.  But  not  by 
violence  :  the  bruised  reed  he  shall  not  break,  the 
smoking  flax  he  shall  not  quench,  yet  he  must  be 
preserved  until  he  has  brought  light  to  the  Gentiles. 
When  the  interrupting  outburst  of  exultation  has  died 
away,  the  proclamation  continues  :  this  servant  is 
blind  and  deaf,  has  for  his  sins  fallen  into  the  prison- 
house  of  the  nations  ;  the  conquering  career  of  Cyrus 
has  brought  deliverance,  and  there  comes  forth  a  blind 
servant  that  hath  eyes,  a  deaf  servant  that  hath  ears. 
1  wo  ideas  are  thus  presented.  One  is  simple  :  the 
restoration  to  Israel  of  its  sense  of  its  Divine  mission  ; 
a  subsequent  scene  makes  this  Israel  a  witness  to  the 
nations,  inviting  the  peoples  of  the  world  to  enter  into 
the  commonwealth  of  Israel.  The  other  is  an  idea 
that  we  read  with  ever  increasing  wonder  :  in  this 
ancient  biblical  book  is  enshrined,  with  most  powerful 
poetic  setting,  the  thought  which  twenty  following 
centuries  of  religious  war  and  persecution  failed  to  grasp, 
the  idea  that  in  the  spiritual  world  physical  force  is 
powerless  ;  by  agencies  gentle  as  the  light  may  a  world 
be  conquered  for  God.  As  the  drama  continues,  a 


THE  LITERARY  STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE  73 

change  seems  to  come  over  the  central  figure  :  the 
servant  of  Jehovah  from  a  nation  becomes  a  personality 
that  can  suffer  martyrdom  ;  yet  again  it  becomes  a 
mystic  personality  whose  sufferings  are  at  last  recognized 
by  the  nations  as  vicarious.  Another  scene  pictures  a 
moral  chaos  :  at  the  point  of  extremity  Jehovah  himself 
resolves  to  bring  salvation.  As  the  strains  of  the  hymn 
to  Redeemed  Zion  die  away,  the  Redeemer  seems  to 
make  His  entry,  announcing  His  glorious  mission  (ch.  lxi). 
‘  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is  upon  me  ;  because  the 
Lord  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  unto  the 
meek  ;  he  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken  hearted, 
to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the  opening 
of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound ;  to  proclaim  the 
acceptable  year  of  the  Lord,  and  the  day  of  vengeance  of 
our  God  ;  to  comfort  all  that  mourn ;  to  appoint  unto 
them  that  mourn  in  Zion,  to  give  unto  them  a 
garland  for  ashes,  the  oil  of  joy  for  mourning, 
the  garment  of  praise  for  the  spirit  of  heaviness.’ 
From  this  ministry  of  healing  the  drama  proceeds 
on  its  course  to  its  climax  in  the  Day  of  Judgement. 
Thus  in  this  poem  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  dramatically  gathered  up.  The  nation  that  was  to 
bring  the  other  nations  to  its  God  has,  in  the  course  of 
history,  broken  down.  Its  divine  mission  has  risen  in  a 
glorified  form  :  the  Servant  of  Jehovah  that  is  to  be 
shall  gather  in  the  nations,  not  by  war  and  conquest, 
but  by  the  gentle  agencies  of  healing  and  redemption.1 

1  World  Literature,  p.  82  ;  cf.  The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible,  p.  435  seq. 


CHAPTER  V 


First  Contact  with  America. 

For  one  who  gave  himself  for  the  greater  part  of  each 
year  so  unreservedly  to  University  Extension  as 
R.  G.  Moulton  did,  life  was  bound  to  be  most  strenuous  and 
exacting.  Travelling,  which  even  in  England  sometimes 
ran  into  four  figures  for  a  week  ;  three  hundred  and  fifty 
papers  to  be  marked  and  commented  upon,  and  six  lectures 
— sometimes  nine — to  be  delivered,  each  followed  by  a 
discussion  class  :  such  was  his  normal  weekly  programme 
for  two  terms  of  twelve  weeks  each  year  from  1874  to  1892, 
with  the  exception  of  the  winter  of  1891-1892,  when  he 
was  in  America.  Take,  for  instance,  his  weekly  pro¬ 
gramme  during  the  period  from  September  to  December, 
1891 — his  last  winter’s  work  in  England,  as  it  turned  out. 
On  Monday  he  lectured  at  Newcastle  on  ‘  The  Literary 
Study  of  the  Bible,’  and  on  Tuesday  at  Middlesbrough  on 
the  same  subject.  On  Wednesday  morning  he  travelled 
to  London  and  lectured  at  Paddington  in  the  afternoon 
and  Hackney  at  night  on  ‘  Stories  as  a  Mode  of  Thinking  ’  ; 
on  Thursday  afternoon  on  ‘  Stories  ’  again  at  the  Holloway 
College,  Egham,  and  on  ‘  The  Ancient  Classical  Drama  ’ 
at  the  Gresham  Institute  in  the  City.  On  Friday  he 
lectured  on  ‘  The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible  ’  at  the 
University  Hall,  Russell  Square,  in  the  afternoon,  and 
on  the  ‘  Stories  ’  at  Lewisham  in  the  evening ;  and 
finished  at  Cheltenham  on  Saturday  afternoon  with  the 
‘  Bible,’  travelling  back  to  Newcastle  in  the  evening.  This 


74 


FIRST  CONTACT  WITH  AMERICA 


75 


is  a  record  of  remarkable  endurance  on  his  part,  and  of  a 
remarkable  demand  for  his  courses  ;  and  it  affords  an 
interesting  side-light  on  Prof.  Grant’s  appreciation.1  All 
the  time  he  was  engaged  on  literary  work.  As  has  already 
been  pointed  out,  his  books  were  not  the  reproductions 
of  his  lectures,  but  his  lectures  the  expression  of  the  book- 
framework  already  thought  out.  In  every  case,  I  think 
I  am  right  in  saying,  the  book  form  was  carefully  planned 
out  before  the  lectures  were  given — the  ‘  lecture  test ' 
suggesting  only  modification  of  some  details.  He  had 
already  published,  through  the  Oxford  Press,  his  Shake¬ 
speare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist  (1885),  and  the  second  edition 
was  issued  in  1889.  In  January,  1890,  the  same  publishers 
issued  his  Ancient  Classical  Drama,  upon  which  we  find 
him  working  most  assiduously  during  the  spring  of  the 
previous  year  (1889) .  A  letter  indicates  that  he  was  bound 
to  deliver  the  whole  by  July  31,  and  he  responded  by 
completing  the  work  on  July  27.  The  summer  found  him, 
as  in  some  other  years,  at  Oxford  for  the  University 
Extension  Summer  Meeting,  where  he  gave  nine  lectures 
on  ‘  The  Ancient  Classical  Drama.’  Nothing  is  more 
noticeable  in  his  lecturing  career  than  the  increasing 
demand  for  that  subject.  It  was  slow  in  arresting  the 
Extension  audiences,  but  when  it  did  ‘  catch  on  ’  its 
success  was  phenomenal.  To  sustain  an  average  audience 
of  700  on  such  a  subject,  as  he  did  at  Newcastle,  was  an 
amazing  achievement,  and  a  notable  tribute  both  to  him 
and  to  them. 

The  pressure  of  work  attaching  to  the  production  of 
that  work  inevitably  postponed  until  the  following  year 
the  Continental  tour  which  he  desired  to  make  a  mid-life 
holiday.  Having  concluded,  as  he  was  wont  to  express 
it,  one  chapter  of  his  life-object,  he  felt  it  was  desirable 
before  determining  the  work  of  the  future  to  think  out  the 

1  P  3°- 


7  6 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


whole  question  of  the  life-object  again.  For  that  end  he 
considered  that  nothing  was  likely  to  serve  his  purpose  so 
well  as  foreign  travel,  during  which  his  ordinary  mental 
processes  would  be  suspended,  while  other  faculties — e.g., 
of  artistic  appreciation,  &c. — would  receive  a  new  stimulus. 
He  purposed  to  give  a  year  to  foreign  travel :  he  actually 
gave  four  months  to  the  Continent  of  Europe,  which  he  had 
not  visited  for  some  years  ;  but  his  tour  in  America,  which 
he  planned  ‘  in  order  to  make  acquaintance  with  the  other 
side  of  the  English-reading  public,’  developed  into  a  real 
‘  campaign  ’  of  public  speaking  and  lecturing,  so  that  one 
condition  he  had  laid  down  for  this  mid-life  holiday — 
‘  work  dropped  ’ — was  certainly  not  fulfilled  !  His 
Continental  tour  was  a  fairly  varied  one,  embracing 
Antwerp,  Cologne,  Dresden,  Berlin,  Prague,  Vienna, 
Buda-Pesth,  Munich,  Innsbruck,  Florence,  Rome,  Venice, 
Milan,  Como,  Lucerne,  Bale,  Paris.  As  might  be  expected, 
he  got  a  great  deal  out  of  such  an  experience,  and  he 
profited  from  the  fact  of  being  away  from  work  in  perfect 
air  and  being  free  to  think  without  any  sense  of  urgency. 
He  revelled  in  the  musical  education  afforded  by  opera, 
and  he  declared  that  he  had  experienced  no  such  sensation 
of  mental  growth  since  his  undergraduate  days,  and  the 
same  was  true  in  respect  of  pictorial  art,  although  in  a  less 
degree. 

Up  to  this  time  there  had  been  one  very  serious  practical 
difficulty  which  seemed  to  preclude  the  prospect  of  a  visit 
to  America.  An  illness  in  childhood  had  left  the  seeds  of 
an  affection  of  the  ear  labyrinths,  which  had  made  sea 
travel  always  a  very  painful  experience,  and  which  during 
the  early  eighties  developed  for  a  time  into  a  serious 
disability.  More  than  forty  years  ago,  of  course,  much  less 
was  known  about  this  kind  of  trouble  ;  and  several 
eminent  physicians — and  even  specialists — although 
having  suspicions  aroused  by  the  nature  of  the  symptoms. 


FIRST  CONTACT  WITH  AMERICA 


77 


were  unable  to  make  an  accurate  diagnosis.  But  at  last 
the  late  Dr.  Edward  Woakes,  of  Harley  Street,  was  found 
able  to  get  to  the  root  of  the  trouble,  and  after  three  or 
four  years  there  seemed  to  be  every  reason  to  believe  that 
a  cure  had  been  accomplished.  But  whether  that  was  so 
or  not  could  only  be  tested  by  experience  ;  and  it  was  for 
this  purpose  that  he  and  I  paid  a  flying  visit  to  the  Orkney 
Isles.  The  test  was  a  fairly  strenuous  one,  for  the  boat 
on  which  we  had  to  cross  from  Thurso  was  small,  and  both 
going  and  returning  we  encountered  a  sea  which  was  very 
choppy,  though  not  absolutely  rough.  He  stood  the  test 
perfectly  well,  and  I  remember  distinctly  how  great  a 
relief  it  was  to  him  in  view  of  his  future  plans. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  among  the  considerations  leading 
up  to  this  visit  to  America  was  the  desire  to  give  as  well 
as  to  get.  As  we  have  seen,  the  original  plan  for  the 
American  section  of  the  mid-life  holiday  included  more 
than  the  ordinary  interests  of  travelling  ;  there  was  the 
intention  to  come  into  living  touch,  if  possible,  with  that 
other  great  portion  of  the  English-speaking  world,  which 
also  shares  that  priceless  inheritance  of  literature  which 
had  been  the  subject-matter  of  R.  G.  Moulton’s  teaching 
Moreover,  the  impulse  did  not  come  only  from  his  side. 
His  work  was  not  altogether  unknown  in  the  United  States 
and  Canada,  and  opportunities  of  meeting  American 
visitors  interested  in  educational  matters  were  afforded 
by  such  gatherings  as  the  meetings  of  the  New  Shakspere 
Society1  and  the  Oxford  Summer  Meetings.  Those 
Oxford  meetings,  attractive  partly  because  it  was  Oxford, 
and  partly  because  of  the  distinguished  lecturers  included 
in  the  programme,  were  at  this  period  specially  interesting 
to  such  visitors  from  the  other  side,  as  they  were  thus 
enabled  to  look  more  closely  into  the  working  of  University 
Extension,  which  had  achieved  such  conspicuous  success 

1  Where  R.  G.  Moulton  read  annual  papers  in  the  period  1885-90. 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


78 

in  England,  and  which — after  scattered  experiments  in 
various  places  in  America — was  just  being  organized  in 
certain  centres  on  a  more  important  scale.  I  remember 
during  one  Summer  Meeting  at  Oxford  when  I  was  his 
guest,  meeting  at  breakfast  one  such  moving  spirit  in 
American  education,  who  certainly  put  pressure  on  him 
to  go  over  and  give  encouragement  and  inspiration  to 
those  engaged  in  similar  work  in  the  United  States,  and 
to  make  known  there  his  special  views  on  the  study  of 
literature.  Thus,  while  he  undoubtedly  went  for  the 
purpose  of  getting — further  insight  into  the  needs,  the 
possibilities,  and  the  characteristics  of  the  English-speaking 
races — it  is  equally  true  that  he  went  for  the  purpose  of 
giving.  He  had  the  missionary  spirit,  and  University 
Extension  was  to  him  much  more  than  a  means  of 
livelihood  and  a  chosen  career.  It  was  a  mission  ;  and 
in  like  manner  Literature  was  to  him  much  more  than  one 
of  the  garnishings  and  adornments  of  a  cultivated  life. 
His  vision  of  its  high  function  as  the  medium  for  the  study 
(‘  criticism  ’)  of  Life — this  was  to  him  a  gospel,  and  a 
gospel  for  all. 

One  thing  is  very  clear  with  reference  to  the  visit. 
He  went  with  no  purpose  of  settling  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic  ;  and  although  he  received  offers  of  various 
attractive  positions  of  educational  influence,  this  remained 
a  fixed  determination  with  him  until  in  the  course  of  his 
second  visit  it  was  borne  in  upon  him  that  America  was 
the  best  sphere  for  the  working  out  of  his  ideas.  But  more 
wall  be  said  about  that  later. 

He  went  to  America  armed  with  a  large  number  of 
personal  introductions  to  people  of  distinction  and  of 
leading,  as  well  as  some  remarkable  tributes  from  out¬ 
standing  men  who  had  attended  his  lectures,  and  knew  his 
gifts.  Prof.  James  Stuart,  M.P.,  to  whom  reference  has 
already  been  made  in  these  pages  as  being  the  initiator  of 


FIRST  CONTACT  WITH  AMERICA 


79 


the  Cambridge  University  Extension  Movement,  gave  a 
warm  appreciation  of  his  power  to  hold  and  interest  while 
instructing  his  audience,  and  bears  testimony  to  his 
exceptional  value  to  the  Movement.  But  two  of  these 
appreciations  are  worthy  of  being  quoted  in  full,  partly 
because  of  the  distinction  of  the  names  they  bear,  and 
partly  because  they  amply  explain  the  standing  which  he 
had  obtained  in  his  fifteen  years  of  Extension  lecturing 
in  England,  and  also  the  standing  which  he  so  rapidly 
obtained  in  America.  The  first  was  from  Dr.  Percival, 
Head  Master  of  Rugby  and  afterwards  Bishop  of  Hereford. 
He  writes  :  ‘  As  Mr.  R.  G.  Moulton  is  about  to  go  to 
America  with  the  intention  of  lecturing  there,  I  desire  to 
say  that  I  had  the  advantage  of  hearing  his  lectures  on 
Faust,  at  the  Oxford  Summer  Meeting  of  University 
Extension  students  in  1888,  and  I  can  honestly  say  that 
I  never  in  my  life  listened  to  a  more  admirable  and 
enjoyable  course  of  lectures.  I  knew  before  hearing 
Mr.  Moulton  that  he  was  the  most  eminent  and  successful 
of  all  the  University  lecturers,  but  I  was  not  prepared  for 
the  wonderful  skill  with  which  he  held  his  large  audience 
entranced  day  after  day.  I  am  glad  to  think  that  our 
English  teachers  are  about  to  be  represented  in  the  States 
by  Mr.  Moulton  ;  and  I  am  using  no  exaggeration  when  I 
say  that  there  is  a  rare  intellectual  treat  in  store  for  every 
society  which  may  have  the  good  fortune  to  secure 
Mr.  Moulton  as  a  lecturer.’  The  second  was  from  the  great 
Shakespeare  expert,  Dr.  F.  J.  Furnivall,  Director  of  the 
‘  New  Shakspere  Society.’1  He  writes  :  ‘  The  originality 
and  ability  of  your  book,  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist, 
struck  me  so  strongly  that  I  asked  you,  though  a  stranger 
to  me,  to  come  on  the  Committee  of  the  New  Shakspere 

1  R.  G.  Moulton  always  adhered  to  the  spelling  '  Shakespeare  ’  ;  but 
this  did  not  seem  to  render  him  in  the  least  degree  suspect  among  those 
who  formed  the  '  New  Shakspere  Society,’  and  who  held  as  tenaciously 
to  the  other  spelling. 


8o 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


Society  and  read  us  some  papers.  You  kindly  did  come, 
and  when  you  read  your  first  paper  we  were  all  charmed 
with  it  and  of  course  printed  it.  Your  admirable  delivery 
of  it — that  of  a  trained  and  eloquent  lecturer,  with  the 
earnestness  and  conviction  of  an  enthusiast  and  a  master 
of  his  subject — was  something  new  at  our  meetings  ;  and 
your  January  paper  has  yearly  since  been  the  treat  of  the 
season.  The  reports  of  friends  of  mine  who  have  attended 
your  lectures  in  the  provinces  more  than  confirm  my  own 
experience  of  you.  They  speak  with  enthusiasm  of  your 
influence  on  them  and  of  how  you  have  stirred  them  to 
study.  The  like  testimony  reaches  me  from  Oxford. 
Were  I  to  search  all  England  through  I  could  not  pick  a 
better  man  than  you  to  represent  the  old  country  as  a 
lecturer  on  English  Literature  in  America.  Your  earnest¬ 
ness  and  breadth,  combined  as  they  are  with  your  power 
of  delicate  analysis,  especially  fit  you  for  United  States 
audiences.’ 

The  schedule  of  engagements  belonging  to  this  visit  is 
an  interesting  study  from  many  points  of  view.  During 
his  first  four  weeks  in  the  country  he  seems  to  have  given 
only  nine  lectures,  three  at  Boston  University,  one  at 
Philadelphia,  and  five  at  Baltimore.  In  the  second  four 
weeks  he  appears  to  have  given  twenty-two  lectures  over 
an  increasing  field  of  influence  ;  and  before  he  finished  the 
tour — in  the  third  week  of  April,  1891 — he  was  lecturing 
two  and  three  times  a  day,  and  even  then  was  unable  to 
meet  all  the  demands  made  upon  him. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  just  at  first  he  had  to 
contend  with  the  Englishman’s  not  uncommon  difficulty 
in  being  heard  in  America,  while  at  the  same  time  there 
was  strong  testimony  as  to  his  clearness  of  enunciation. 
This  was  no  doubt  partly  due  to  the  difference  between 
the  English  and  American  intonation  and  pronunciation, 
although  a  prominent  Bostonian  told  him  ‘  Your  English 


FIRST  CONTACT  WITH  AMERICA 


81 


brogue  is  not  offensively  strong.’  But  most  of  his  lectures 
were  on  subjects  of  a  dramatic  character,  and  at  that 
time  general  audiences  were  unaccustomed  to  the  rapid 
changes  of  intonation  required  in  the  ‘  Interpretative 
Recital,’  which  he  had  worked  out  for  himself  as  a  most 
effective  medium  for  the  presentation  of  a  whole  dramatic 
work  in  one  view.  But  this  difficulty,  once  realized,  was 
speedily  surmounted,  and  from  many  records  of  this 
period  it  is  evident  that  as  a  public  speaker  he  was  par¬ 
ticularly  acceptable  to  American  audiences. 

In  order  fully  to  explain  the  uniqueness  of  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  opened  to  this  visiting  English  lecturer,  it  is 
necessary  to  say  something  as  to  the  stage  of  development 
at  which  the  University  Extension  idea  had  arrived  in  the 
United  States.  As  in  England  before  the  scheme  of  Prof. 
Stuart  took  shape  in  1873,  so  in  various  parts  of  the  United 
States  there  are  recorded  isolated  experiments  in  extending 
the  field  of  University  teaching.  But  during  1890  most 
important  steps  towards  organization  were  being  taken, 
Dr.  William  Pepper,  distinguished  Provost  of  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania  from  1881  to  1894,  being  the 
moving  spirit.  Some  years  earlier  he  had  inaugurated 
‘  The  University  Lecture  Association  ...  to  bring  the 
University  and  the  Community  into  closer  sympathy.’  In 
the  wider  idea  of  University  Extension  he  saw  also 
'  an  opportunity  for  co-operation  among  academic  insti¬ 
tutions.  ’ 1  Under  his  leadership  was  formed  inPhiladelphia 
the  Society  under  whose  auspices  a  meeting  was  held  on 
November  19,  1890,  to  arouse  interest  in  the  movement. 
'  Among  the  notable  speeches  .  .  .  were  those  by  him  ’ 
(Dr.  Pepper),  ‘  by  the  President  of  Princeton  University, 
and  by  Dr.  Moulton,  who  at  that  time  was  about  to 
inaugurate  in  Philadelphia  his  first  lectures  on  Literature. 

1  From  the  Life  of  William  Pepper,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  by  Francis  Newton 
Thorpe.  (Lippincott,  1904.) 

F 


82 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


The  effect  of  Dr.  Moulton’s  speech  was  immediate.  Many 
joined  the  Society,  and  its  purpose  was  more  widely  and 
correctly  understood.’ 1  The  Society  thus  formed  became 
in  December,  1890,  ‘  The  American  Society  for  the 
Extension  of  University  Teaching,’  the  presidents  of  many 
leading  institutions  of  learning  being  members  of  its 
Governing  Council  from  the  first.  By  June,  1891,  nearly 
eighty  of  the  most  important  universities  and  colleges  in 
the  United  States — from  east  to  west  and  north  to 
south — had  '  signified  a  willingness  to  co-operate  with 
the  American  Society,’  which  was  an  important  step  in 
advance. 

It  will  be  seen  that  R.  G.  Moulton  reached  the  Eastern 
United  States  just  when  the  field  was  prepared  for  the 
use  of  exactly  such  talents  and  experience  as  his,  and  he 
often  spoke  of  the  deep  satisfaction  it  had  been  to  him  to 
be  able  to  take  the  great  opportunity  which  opened  before 
him.  In  November,  1890,  Provost  Pepper  proposed  that 
he  should  get  rid  of  sporadic  lecturing  and  give  all  his 
time  to  the  Society  for  the  remainder  of  the  season. 
Engagements  already  made  in  Boston,  Baltimore,  Wash¬ 
ington  and  other  places  had  to  be  fitted  in,  but  by  arrange¬ 
ment  a  period  of  ten  weeks,  beginning  with  January  26, 
1891,  was  practically  cleared  and  placed  at  the  disposal  of 
the  Society.  Most  of  the  courses  given  were  of  six 
lectures,  some  of  four  ;  while,  as  a  means  of  introducing 
the  University  Extension  idea,  short  ‘  campaigns,’  each 
consisting  of  one  explanatory  address  and  one  or  two 
lectures  illustrating  the  method,  were  found  most  effective, 
and  these  were  arranged  in  many  places. 

There  was  immediate  recognition  of  the  value  of  all 
this  work,  the  clear  and  artistic  presentation  of  the 
subject-matter  being  especially  appreciated.  As  an  English 

1  From  the  Life  of  William  Pepper,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  by  Francis  Newton 
Thorpe.  (Lippincott,  1904.) 


FIRST  CONTACT  WITH  AMERICA 


83 

exponent  of  literature  he  was  placed  in  the  highest  rank, 
and  it  was  declared  by  educational  authorities,  and  in 
the  press,  that  no  Englishman  had  ever  rendered  such 
services  to  education  in  America.  Discriminating  testi¬ 
mony,  as  well  to  the  personal  impression  as  to  the  effect 
produced  by  the  ‘  missionary  ’  character  of  the  work, 
abounds  in  educational  and  literary  journals  of  the  period. 
An  article  in  Book  News  (Philadelphia)  for  May,  1891, 
contains  the  following  : 

In  the  constant  practice  of  the  lecture  stand  he  has 
acquired  the  dramatic  and  declamatory  powers  which 
have  amazed  those  unaware  of  all  that  can  be  done  to 
render  scholarship  interesting  by  enlisting  in  the  service 
arts  usually  devoted  to  amusing,  and  neglected  in 
instructing  audiences.  He  has  added  to  these  brilliant 
accomplishments  a  scholarship,  broad,  catholic,  and 
embracing.  He  has  shown  that  it  is  possible  to  read 
extracts  from  a  play  better  than  they  are  given  on  the 
stage,  and  at  the  same  time  comment  on  them  with  a 
penetrating  criticism  equal  to  all  the  efforts  of  the 
study.  From  our  American  audiences,  whose  superior 
penetration  of  the  subtler  phases  of  acting  every  English 
actor — from  Mr.  Irving  down— has  noted,  Mr.  Moulton 
has  received  appreciation  as  complimentary  to  his 
audiences  as  to  himself.  In  Boston  and  in  Philadelphia 
— in  one  city  as  much  as  the  other — he  has  drawn 
audiences  at  hours  when  halls  are  usually  empty,  and 
won  approval  from  newspapers  which  devote  but  little 
attention  to  the  lecture  platform.  .  .  .  Literary  per¬ 
ception,  dramatic  presentation,  and  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  itinerant,  have  made  Mr.  Moulton's  work  successful 
in  England  and  notable  in  this  country. 

From  the  University  Extension  point  of  view  the  following 
extracts  are  interesting — taken  from  an  account  of  the 
movement  and  the  early  days  of  the  American  Society, 


84  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

published  in  the  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger  of  March  28, 
1891  : 

This  rapid  growth  was  due  in  great  part  to  the  visit 
to  this  country  of  Mr.  Richard  G.  Moulton,  of  the 
University  of  Cambridge.  This  remarkable  man,  who 
has  served  as  a  true  apostle  to  the  movement  in  this 
country,  .  .  .  threw  himself  into  the  work  with  a  zeal  and 
energy  which  overcame  all  obstacles.  ...  He  began  at 
once  the  work  of  lecturing  and  teaching  with  a  devotion 
that  seemed  almost  incredible.  His  audiences  steadily 
grew,  not  only  in  size  but  in  interest,  as  the  weeks 
passed  by.  Lecturing  and  teaching  twice  and  even 
three  times  a  day,  his  time  was  given  up  almost  wholly 
to  the  work,  yet  somehow  he  managed  to  find  oppor¬ 
tunity  to  encourage  educational  work  in  other  places 
and  in  other  directions,  and  to  counsel  and  warn  the 
local  committees  and  the  central  body  as  to  their  best 
course.  His  strength  and  energy  seemed  exhaustless, 
yet  his  large  audiences  always  found  him  ready  for  the 
two  hours’  hard  work  of  lecturing  and  of  answering 
questions,  and  those  who  furnished  written  answers 
found  them  surveyed  with  a  more  critical  eye  and 
annotated  with  far  more  care  than  the  average  college 
student  finds  his  tutor  gives  to  such  work.  .  .  .  But 
he  was  imbued  with  the  true  missionary  spirit,  and 
difficulties  and  trials  only  seemed  to  stimulate  him  to 
further  exertions. 

The  Philadelphia  engagement  ended  early  in  April, 
1891,  and  the  fourteen  remaining  days  in  the  United  States 
were  occupied  in  fulfilling  promises  to  speak  in  several 
universities  and  colleges,  and  in  giving  another  important 
series  of  lectures  in  Boston,  where  he  was  greatly  appre¬ 
ciated  as  an  exponent  both  of  literature  and  of  the 
University  Extension  idea.  One  leading  writer,  in  a 
laudatory  letter  to  the  editor  of  the  Boston  Evening 
Transcript,  says  :  ‘  If  “  University  Extension  ”  means 


FIRST  CONTACT  WITH  AMERICA 


85 

lectures  such  as  these,  would  that  "  University  Extension  ” 
were  as  compulsory  as  common  school  education  !  ’ 

On  April  18,  1891,  he  sailed  for  England.  Viewing  the 
whole  visit  in  the  light  of  his  original  purpose,  he  had 
every  reason  to  be  more  than  satisfied,  although  geo¬ 
graphically  the  tour  had  of  necessity  been  restricted  to  the 
Eastern  States — many  places  that  had  been  in  the  original 
plan  being  left  unvisited.  In  the  few  months  he  had, 
however,  come  in  contact  with  many  of  the  great  leaders 
in  education,  and  gained  much  by  the  exchange  of  ideas. 
Also  the  originality  of  his  own  special  ideas  on  the  study 
and  method  of  teaching  literature  had  been  recognized  to 
an  extent  that  must  have  been  very  gratifying.  Moreover, 
it  had  been  a  joy  to  him  to  have  so  great  a  part  in  the 
launching  in  America  of  University  Extension.  He  had 
also  made  an  important  departure  with  reference  to  the 
presentation  of  the  Bible  as  Literature  ;  and  the  response 
had  been  immediate  and  astonishing.  One  expression  of 
the  high  value  set  upon  his  services  in  the  educational 
field  gave  him  peculiar  pleasure,  because  it  was  expressly 
stated  to  be  in  recognition  of  ‘  work  done  ’  during  the 
period,  and  because  of  its  appropriateness  to  the  bent  of 
his  mind.  After  the  close  of  the  academic  year  of  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania  he  received  a  letter  from 
Provost  Pepper,  from  which  the  following  is  an  extract : 

‘  It  affords  me  great  pleasure  to  inform  you  that  at  the 
last  Commencement  Exercises  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  I  was  authorized  to  confer  upon  you,  in 
absentia,  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy,  causa 
honoris.’ 

A  propos  of  various  opportunities  to  remain  permanently 
in  America,  which  were  known  to  have  been  offered  to 
R.  G.  Moulton,  one  ‘  interviewer  ’  records  in  February, 
1891,  this  remark  :  '  Mr.  Moulton  has  said  that  he  thinks 
that  his  life-work  is  in  England.’  And  yet  in  his  own 


86 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


memoranda,  under  the  date  of  January  26,  1891,  appears 
the  following  :  ‘  Concluded  contract  with  University  of 

Chicago  to  give  the  academic  year  1892-3  to  assisting  start, 
including  University  Extension — they  to  control  all 
lecturing  engagements  for  the  year — to  be  followed  in 
summer  by  Chautauqua  work — either  party  to  back  out 
on  unforeseen  contingencies.’  This  momentous  decision, 
which  shaped  the  rest  of  his  life,  was  an  undertaking  given 
to  a  body  which  did  not  exist,  to  help  a  department  of 
work  which  had  not  been  created,  on  the  earnest  solicitation 
of  a  President  who  had  not  been  appointed  !  He  might 
have  had  a  dozen  posts  in  the  educational  life  of  America 
not  only  for  the  asking  but  for  just  saying  ‘  Yes,’  and  yet 
he  accepted  this  invitation  in  respect  of  something  that 
seemed  to  be  altogether  in  the  air.  What  was  behind  it  ? 


CHAPTER  VI 


Chicago 

It  was  Chicago  which  was  to  be  for  the  next  twenty-five 
years  and  more  the  centre  at  which  R.  G.  Moulton  was 
located.  From  there  he  was  to  carry  on  unceasingly  his 
missionary  activities  in  connexion  with  the  cause  of 
education  in  general  and  the  advancement  of  the  study 
of  Literature  in  particular.  There  too  he  was  to  have  the 
opportunity  in  some  measure  to  put  into  organized  practical 
operation  his  special  theories. 

For  the  very  reason  that  the  University  of  Chicago 
bulked  so  large  in  his  career — and  in  his  affections — a 
passing  glance  must  be  cast  at  the  fortunes  and  mis¬ 
fortunes  of  this  great  metropolis  of  the  Western  States, 
especially  in  so  far  as  they  bear  upon  the  matter  under 
consideration.  In  1837  the  population  of  Chicago  was 
only  that  of  a  small  market  town— just  over  four  thousand. 
Within  the  next  forty  years  it  passed  through  the  agony 
of  the  Civil  War  ;  encountered  at  least  two  periods  of 
widespread  financial  panic,  in  1857  and  1873  I  was  wrecked 
by  two  devastating  fires  in  1871  and  1874  ;  and  yet 
before  the  close  of  the  century  it  could  point  to  a  University 
second  to  none  in  the  intellectual  distinction  of  its  teachers 
and  the  far-reaching  character  of  its  manifold  activities, 
and  equipped  with  buildings  and  plant  representing 
benefactions  running  into  many  millions  of  dollars.  The 
impression  left  by  The  Story  of  the  University  of  Chicago, 
as  told  by  Thomas  Wakefield  Goodspeed,  is  one  of  amazing 

87 


88 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


recuperative  power  and  of  astonishing  public  spirit  on  the 
part  of  Chicago’s  leading  citizens.1 

It  was  in  1856  that  .Senator  S.  A.  Douglas  donated  a 
valuable  site  of  about  ten  acres  for  the  establishment  of  a 
university  in  Chicago.  The  story  of  its  chequered  career 
cannot  be  set  forth  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  period 
of  its  existence  synchronized  with  that  of  the  fivefold 
disasters  referred  to  above.  However  great  the  ability 
and  worth  of  those  who  stood  sponsor  for  the  enterprise, 
it  had  not  a  fighting  chance  against  such  odds,  and  it  was 
soon  heavily  encumbered  with  debt.  In  a  painfully 
literal  sense  it  '  began  to  build  and  was  not  able  to  finish,’ 
and  in  1886  it  closed  down  ;  not,  however,  before  it  had, 
to  use  Dr.  Goodspeed’s  phrase,  ‘  produced  a  profound  con¬ 
viction  that  Chicago  was  the  predestined  seat  of  a  great 
institution  of  learning,  and  the  inextinguishable  desire  and 
unalterable  purpose  that  a  new  University,  built  on  more 
secure  foundations,  and  offering  greater  and  better 
facilities,  should  succeed  the  old  one.’ 

Equally  inseparable  from  the  story  of  the  genesis  of  the 
present  University  of  Chicago  were  the  institution  of  the 
Baptist  Theological  .Seminary,  and,  later,  the  activities 
of  the  American  Baptist  Education  Society.  It  should 
not  be  forgotten  that,  although  it  has  been  from  the  first 
catholic  in  the  truest  and  richest  sense,  the  University  of 
Chicago  owes  its  inception  to  Baptist  initiative,  and  was 
in  the  first  instance  made  possible  by  Baptist  munificence, 
and  was  settled  upon  trust-deeds  which  provided  for  two- 
thirds  of  the  Trustees  and  also  the  President  being  Baptists. ! 

1  The  Story  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  1890 — 1925.  By  T.  W. 
Goodspeed.  (Cambridge  University  Press.) 

1  In  1923  an  amendment  of  the  Articles  of  Incorporation  was  made 
in  respect  to  this  matter.  President  Burton,  in  his  Convocation 
Statement  on  June  12,  1923,  made  the  following  announcement : 
'  At  the  request  of  the  University,  the  Board  of  Education  of  the 
Northern  Baptist  Convention,  the  corporation  which  in  1889-90  founded 
the  University,  at  its  meeting  in  Atlantic  City,  May  26,  gave  its  consent 


CHICAGO 


8g 

The  Seminary  had  suffered  during  its  early  years  in  much 
the  same  way  as  the  old  University,  and  possibly  from  the 
same  causes,  and  it  was  only  after  its  removal  to  Morgan 
Park  in  1877  that  it  threw  off  its  embarrassments. 

Two  names  will  always  stand  by  themselves  among  those 
who  made  this  enterprise  into  what  it  is  ;  and  both  of 
them  came  in  along  the  lines  hinted  at  in  the  last  para¬ 
graph.  One  was  John  D.  Rockefeller,  who  was  a  generous 
patron  of  Morgan  Park,  and  for  nine  years  Vice-President 
of  the  Baptist  Theological  Union.  Mr.  Rockefeller  is  too 
familiar  a  figure  to  the  world  to  need  any  general  introduc¬ 
tion  to  any  readers.  But  his  relations  to  those  matters 
touching  the  projected  University  reveal  a  side  of  him 
which  calls  for  special  notice.  He  was  much  more  than  a 
lavish  donor  to  a  scheme  which  he  made  his  hobby.  The 
detailed  records  as  presented  in  the  pages  of  Dr.  Good- 
speed’s  book  reveal  a  man  acting  on  deep  conviction,  and 
full  of  an  intelligent,  and  what  the  old  Puritans  would 
call  a  '  painful,’  interest  in  the  prospect  for  its  own  sake. 
His  position  among  American  Baptists  made  it  natural  and 
inevitable  that  he  should  be  approached  as  the  one  man 
who  was  most  able  to  serve  the  denomination  in  its 
educational  schemes.  But  the  story  of  that  approach 
leaves  the  impression  of  a  man  who  is  not  to  be  argued 
into  a  decision,  but  who  listens,  gathers  information, 
masters  the  facts — and  makes  no  definite  response  other 
than  that  of  courteous  appreciation  until  his  mind  has 
grasped  the  whole  situation  and  has  presented  a  conclusive 
case  to  his  affections,  his  conscience  and  his  will.  When 

to  the  revision  of  one  of  the  original  Articles  of  Incorporation  of  the 
University.  This  original  article  provided  that  “  at  all  times  two-thirds 
of  the  Trustees  and  also  the  President  of  the  University  shall  be  members 
of  regular  Baptist  churches.”  By  the  action  of  the  Board  all  restrictions 
on  the  choice  of  President  will  be  removed,  and  the  proportion  of 
Trustees  required  to  be  Baptists  will  be  changed  from  two-thirds  to 
three-fifths,  the  total  number  being  at  the  same  time  raised  to  twenty- 
five.’ 


go 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


once  that  was  achieved  he  gave  his  help  with  a  lavish  hand, 
and  the  University  is  a  lasting  monument  to  the  fact. 
‘  When,’  to  quote  from  the  same  source,  ‘  in  November, 
1892,  the  Board  of  Trustees  “  voted  unanimously  that  in 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  University  owes  its 
existence  and  its  endowment  to  Mr.  Rockefeller,  the  words 
Founded  by  John  D.  Rockefeller  be  printed  in  all  official 
publications  and  letter-heads  under  the  name  of  the 
University,  and  be  put  upon  the  Seal,”  it  expressed  far 
less  than  the  full  truth.  Other  institutions  have  been 
founded  by  some  particular  man.  They  might  have  been 
founded  by  some  other  man  just  as  well.  But  there  was 
no  other  man  to  do  for  the  University  of  Chicago  what 
Mr.  Rockefeller  did  for  it.  Without  him  an  educational 
institution  of  some  kind  might  have  been  established,  but 
nothing  resembling  the  University  of  Chicago.  For 
bringing  that  institution  into  existence  he  was  the  one 
essential  man.’ 

But  while  that  is  wholly  true  on  the  one  side,  on  the 
other  there  stands  out  as  equally  essential,  in  an  utterly 
different  way,  William  Rainey  Harper,  first  President  of 
the  University.  His  was  an  amazing  story  of  a  life  cut 
short  before  he  reached  his  fiftieth  birthday,  but  crammed 
full  of  rich  and  varied  service,  and  of  noble  and  lasting 
achievements.  Born  in  July,  1856,  he  was  at  college 
when  only  ten,  and  graduated  with  special  distinction  in 
Hebrew  at  fourteen.  In  his  nineteenth  year  he  took  his 
doctorate  in  Philosophy  at  Yale,  married  the  daughter  of 
his  college  president  at  Muskingum,  Ohio,  and  was 
appointed  Principal  of  the  Masonic  College,  Macon, 
Tennessee.  At  twenty-three  he  was  elected  Hebrew 
Professor  at  Morgan  Park,  after  spending  three  fruitful 
years  under  Dr.  E.  B.  Andrews  at  Denison  University, 
Granville,  Ohio.  After  seven  years  at  Morgan  Park  he 
went  to  Yale  as  Professor  of  Semitic  Languages,  and  there 


CHICAGO 


9i 


he  stayed  until  he  was  called  in  1891  to  the  presidency  of  a 
University  which  as  yet  had  no  buildings  and  no  students, 
but  which  he  lived  to  see  thronged  with  thousands  of 
students  and  equipped  with  several  million  dollars’  worth 
of  plant,  extending  on  all  sides  each  year.  It  is  not  quite 
easy  to  discern  the  degree  to  which  Mr.  Rockefeller  and 
Dr.  Harper  influenced  each  other’s  decision  in  respect 
of  the  University  that  was  to  be,  but  there  are  suggestions 
that  as  early  as  1888  Mr.  Rockefeller’s  own  share  in  the 
matter  seemed  to  be  in  some  degree  conditioned  by  Dr. 
Harper’s  being  in  it  too.  At  the  same  period  Dr.  Harper 
seems  to  have  scouted  all  suggestions  from  his  friends  that 
he  would  be  the  first  President  if  the  Chicago  scheme 
materialized  :  but  in  July,  1889,  he  writes  :  ‘You  may  be 
sure  I  am  thinking  and  dreaming  and  doing  nothing  but 
this  Chicago  matter.’  With  him  at  that  stage  it  was 
largely  a  matter  of  the  financial  possibilities  of  the  scheme. 
His  enthusiasm  for  instruction  in  Hebrew  being  the  out¬ 
standing  feature  of  his  teaching  career  from  first  to  last, 
and,  having  the  struggles  and  troubles  of  the  old  University 
fresh  in  his  mind,  he  shrank  from  the  prospect  of  turning 
aside  from  his  life-work  to  serving  tables  and  tackling 
debts  ;  and  his  feeling  was  natural  and  justifiable.  How¬ 
ever,  after  much  consideration  and  negotiation,  a  satis¬ 
factory  answer  was  found  to  the  fundamental  question — 
'  How  could  Dr.  Harper  become  President  of  a  University 
in  Chicago,  and  at  the  same  time  not  practically  renounce 
his  chosen  life-work  of  Old  Testament  research,  criticism 
and  instruction  ?  ’  Gradually  a  plan  was  evolved  which 
provided  (a)  for  the  Theological  Seminary  to  become  an 
organic  part  of  the  new  University  and  eventually  to  be 
removed  to  the  campus  ;  ( b )  for  instruction  in  Hebrew 
and  Old  Testament  Criticism  to  be  transferred  to 
University  chairs,  with  Dr.  Harper  as  Head  Professor, 
with  full  authority  over  that  department ;  (c)  for  a  new 


92  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

unconditional  gift  of  one  million  dollars  to  aid  this  and 
other  parts  of  the  programme.  On  September  18,  1890, 
the  Board  of  Trustees  had  formally  invited  Dr.  Harper 
to  accept  the  presidency,  but  it  was  not  until  February  28, 
1891,  that  he  intimated  his  formal  acceptance  of  the  post. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this  latter  date  is  more  than 
a  month  after  the  date  on  which  R.  G.  Moulton  had,  in  an 
interview  with  Dr.  Harper  at  Washington,  entered  into 
the  arrangement  conditional  on  both  sides — by  which  he 
was  to  give  an  academic  year  to  assisting  the  new  Univer¬ 
sity  of  Chicago  !  Moreover,  the  date  for  the  commencement 
of  Dr.  Harper’s  duties  was  fixed  as  July  1,  1891,  and  the 
University  was  not  to  open  its  doors  to  students  until 
October  1,  1892.  It  is  evident  that  during  his  period  of 
indecision  Dr.  Harper  had  already  taken  some  steps 
towards  ascertaining  what  assistance  in  his  great  under¬ 
taking  might  be  available. 

Before  passing  on  to  see  Dr.  Harper’s  mind  at  work  in 
framing  the  University,  a  glance  should  be  cast  on  those 
who,  in  addition  to  Mr.  Rockefeller,  stood  by  him  in  the 
project  I  mean  the  Board  of  Trustees.  They  were  mostly 
men  who  occupied  responsible  positions  in  Chicago,  and 
some  lived  as  far  away  as  New  \  ork  :  while  during  the 
most  crucial  years  of  organization  five  of  them  were  at 
the  same  time  serving  as  Directors  of  the  World’s  Colum¬ 
bian  Exposition.  Yet  in  spite  of  all  these  claims  on  their 
time  and  energy,  such  was  their  devotion  that  during  a 
period  of  ten  years  two  hundred  and  fifty  meetings  showed 
an  average  attendance  of  twelve  or  thirteen  out  of  a 
possible  total  of  twenty-one.  Every  imaginable  subject 
of  both  an  educational  and  business  character  was 
presented  to  the  Board  for  its  consideration,  and  the 
magnitude  of  their  task  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  the 
sums  which  passed  through  their  hands  for  investment  and 
re-investment  amounted  to  about  fifteen  million  dollars 


CHICAGO 


93 


during  the  ten  years,  while  the  expenditure  which  they  had 
to  supervise  over  that  period  amounted  to  five  million 
dollars.  Further,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  1893  was 
a  year  of  financial  panic  :  ‘  and  it  was  not  altogether 
certain  that  the  new  institution  could  meet  the  heavy 
demands  made  upon  it  in  view  of  the  generous  scale  on 
which  it  had  been  started.  In  these  times  of  crisis  the 
strength  and  courage  of  the  Trustees  individually  and 
collectively  appeared  at  its  best.’1  The  benefactions  up 
to  June  30,  1902,  amounted  to  seventeen  and  a  half 
million  dollars,  of  which  nearly  six  millions  were  given 
by  others  than  Mr.  Rockefeller,  mostly  by  citizens  of 
Chicago.  At  one  time  a  considerable  measure  of  doubt 
was  felt  as  to  ‘  whether  the  citizens  of  Chicago  would 
rally  to  the  support  of  an  institution  established  so  closely 
in  connexion  with  a  single  denomination  and  assisted  so 
generously  by  one  man.  The  history  of  other  institutions 
organized  wholly  or  in  part  along  the  same  lines  was  not 
encouraging,  and  the  very  fact  that  Mr.  Rockefeller  was 
understood  to  be  able  to  furnish  all  the  money  that  might 
be  needed  was  a  source  of  difficulty ;  but  the  people  of 
Chicago  exhibited  in  this  matter  great  breadth  of  mind 
and  intelligence.  Moved  by  the  example  of  a  few  men 
known  throughout  the  country  for  their  large  and  generous 
consideration  of  important  questions,  the  public  at 
large  soon  came  into  friendly  relationship  with  the 
University.’ 

In  connexion  with  this  matter  of  benefactions  it  is 
interesting  to  note  President  Harper’s  exposition,  in  this 
same  document,  of  what  may  be  called  the  ethical  basis  of 
benefactions,  and  the  status  of  benefactors : 

1  From  The  President's  Report  issued  in  connexion  with  the  Decennial 
Celebrations,  1902.  Much  that  is  written  concerning  the  ‘genius'  of 
the  University  in  the  following  pages  is  more  or  less  based  upon  what 
Dr.  Harper  wrote  in  that  illuminating  production — which  deserved 
some  kindlier  designation  than  '  Report  ’  ! 


94  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

It  is  my  opinion  that  no  donor  of  money  to  a  univers¬ 
ity,  whether  that  donor  be  an  individual  or  the  state, 
has  any  right  before  God  or  man  to  interfere  with  the 
teaching  of  officers  appointed  to  give  instruction  in  a 
university.  When  for  any  reason,  in  a  university  on 
private  foundation,  or  in  a  university  supported  by 
public  money,  the  administration  of  the  institution  or 
the  instruction  in  any  one  of  its  departments  is  changed 
by  an  influence  from  without  ;  when  an  effort  is  made 
to  dislodge  an  officer  or  a  professor  because  the  political 
sentiment  or  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  majority  has 
undergone  a  change,  at  that  moment  the  institution 
has  ceased  to  be  a  university,  and  it  cannot  again  take 
its  place  in  the  rank  of  universities  so  long  as  there 
continues  to  exist,  to  any  appreciable  extent,  the  factor 
of  coercion.  Neither  an  individual,  nor  the  state,  nor 
the  church  has  the  right  to  interfere  with  the  search 
for  truth,  or  with  its  promulgation  when  found. 
Individuals,  or  the  state,  or  the  church  may  found 
schools  for  propagating  certain  kinds  of  instruction, 
but  such  schools  are  not  universities,  and  may  not  be 
so  denominated.  A  donor  has  the  privilege  of  ceasing 
to  make  his  gifts  to  an  institution  if,  in  his  opinion,  for 
any  reason,  the  work  of  the  institution  is  not  satisfactory ; 
but  as  donor  he  has  no  right  to  interfere  with  the 
administration  or  the  instruction  of  the  university.  .  .  . 
In  order  to  be  specific,  and  in  order  not  to  be  misunder¬ 
stood,  I  wish  to  say  that  no  donor  of  funds  to  the 
University — and  I  include  among  the  donors  the  founder 
of  the  University,  Mr.  Rockefeller — has  ever  by  a  single 
word  or  act  indicated  his  dissatisfaction  with  the 
instruction  given  to  students  in  the  University,  or  with 
the  public  expression  of  opinion  made  by  an  officer  of 
the  University. 

This  is  a  pronouncement  of  considerable  importance, 
not  merely  because  it  embodies  Dr.  Harper’s  conception 
of  a  University  but  also  because  the  first  plan  was  for  the 


CHICAGO 


95 


establishment  of  a  College,  not  a  University.  But  what 
about  the  use  and  abuse  of  the  right  of  free  expression  by 
officers  of  the  University  staff — which  is  another  aspect 
of  the  same  question  ?  A  companion  pronouncement  to 
the  above,  on  this  subject  of  general  interest,  throws  one 
more  sidelight  on  the  mind  of  Dr.  Harper.  After  laying 
down  the  absolute  right  of  the  University  instructor  to 
express  his  opinion  ;  and  the  equally  absolute  right  of 
the  University,  in  the  case  of  an  instructor  engaged  for  a 
term  of  years,  to  allow  the  appointment  to  lapse  when  the 
period  has  expired,  if  it  thinks  fit,  he  goes  on  to  say  : 

If  an  officer  on  permanent  appointment  abuses  his 
privilege  as  a  professor,  the  University  must  suffer,  and 
it  is  proper  that  it  should  suffer.  This  is  only  the 
direct  and  inevitable  consequence  of  the  lack  of  proper 
foresight  and  wisdom  involved  in  the  original  appoint¬ 
ment.  The  injury  thus  accruing  to  the  University  is, 
moreover,  far  less  serious  than  would  follow  if,  for  an 
expression  of  opinion  differing  from  that  of  the  majority 
of  the  faculty,  or  from  that  of  the  Board  of  Trustees, 
or  from  that  of  the  President  of  the  University,  a 
permanent  officer  were  asked  to  present  his  resignation. 
The  greatest  single  element  necessary  for  the  cultivation 
of  the  academic  spirit  is  the  feeling  of  security  from 
interference.  It  is  only  those  who  have  this  feeling 
who  are  able  to  do  work  which  in  the  highest  sense  will 
be  beneficial  to  humanity.  Freedom  of  expression  must 
be  given  the  members  of  a  university  faculty,  even 
though  it  be  abused  ;  for,  as  has  been  said,  the  abuse 
of  it  is  not  so  great  an  evil  as  the  restriction  of  such 
liberty.  But  it  may  be  asked  :  In  what  way  may  the 
professor  abuse  his  privilege  of  freedom  of  expression  ? 
Or,  to  put  the  question  more  largely,  In  what  way  does 
a  professor  bring  reproach  and  injury  to  himself  and  to 
his  institution  ?  I  answer  :  A  professor  is  guilty  of  an 
abuse  of  his  privilege  who  promulgates  as  truth  ideas  or 


96  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

opinions  which  have  not  been  tested  scientifically  by 
his  colleagues  in  the  same  department  of  research  or 
investigation.  ...  A  professor  abuses  his  privilege 
who  takes  advantage  of  a  classroom  exercise  to  propagate 
the  partisan  views  of  one  or  another  of  the  political 
parties.  ...  A  professor  abuses  his  privilege  of  expres¬ 
sion  of  opinion  when,  although  a  student  and  perhaps 
an  authority  in  one  department  or  group  of  departments, 
he  undertakes  to  speak  authoritatively  on  subjects 
which  have  no  relationship  to  the  department  in  which 
he  was  appointed  to  give  instruction.  ...  A  professor 
abuses  his  privilege  of  freedom  of  expression  when  he 
fails  to  exercise  that  quality  ordinarily  called  common 
sense,  which,  it  must  be  confessed,  in  some  cases  the 
professor  lacks.  A  professor  ought  not  to  make  such 
an  exhibition  of  his  weakness,  or  to  make  such  an 
exhibition  of  his  weakness  so  many  times,  that  the 
attention  of  the  public  at  large  is  called  to  the  fact. 
In  this  respect  he  has  no  larger  liberty  than  other 
men. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  first  million-dollar  fund  was  raised 
for  the  establishment  of  a  college.  But,  as  Dr.  Goodspeed 
puts  it,  ‘  For  the  first  and  only  time  in  Dr.  Harper’s  life, 
his  prolific  mind  seemed  to  be  barren  of  ideas  ...  he 
found  himself  unable  to  think  in  terms  of  a  college — for 
undergraduate  students  only.  No  sooner,  however,  had 
Mr.  Rockefeller  added  a  million  dollars  to  the  funds  for 
the  purpose  of  making  the  college  a  true  University  than 
Dr.  Harper’s  mind  became  very  busy.’  Before  the 
University  actually  came  into  operation  he  had  thought  it 
all  out  in  terms  of  (i)  The  University  proper ;  (2)  The 
University  Extension  ;  (3)  The  University  Press  ;  (4)  The 
University  Libraries,  Laboratories,  and  Museums  ;  (5)  The 
University  affiliations.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  how  this 
fivefold  formation  expressed  what  was  so  vital  a  considera¬ 
tion  to  him — the  obligation  of  a  university  to  the  outsider. 


CHICAGO 


97 

Se|f-centredness  is  always  the  snare  of  such  an  institution 
— the  absorption  in  its  own  life  and  work  ;  and  against 
this  he  resolutely  set  himself. 

The  same  attitude  is  manifest  with  reference  to  the 
distribution  of  the  Academic  Year,  which  was  divided  into 
four  quarters,  eventually  arranged  to  consist  of  rather  more 
than  eleven  weeks  each.  Members  of  the  faculties  are 
only  expected  to  lecture,  and  students  to  attend,  in  three 
of  these  quarters,  but  Dr.  Harper  felt  strongly  the  advan¬ 
tages  of  so  elastic  a  system. 

After  pointing  out  that  in  the  climate  of  Chicago  there 
is  no  season  more  suitable  for  work  than  the  summer,  he 
proceeds  : 

This  plan  of  a  continuous  session  secures  certain 
advantages  which  are  denied  in  institutions  open  only 
three-fourths  of  the  year.  It  will  permit  the  admission 
of  students  to  the  University  at  several  times  during 
the  year,  rather  than  at  one  time  only,  the  arrangement 
of  courses  having  already  been  made  with  this  object 
in  view.  It  will  enable  students  who  have  lost  time 
because  of  illness  to  make  up  the  lost  work,  without 
further  injury  to  their  health  or  detriment  to  the  subject 
studied.  ...  It  will  permit  students  to  be  absent  from 
the  University  during  those  portions  of  the  year  in  which 
they  can  to  best  advantage  occupy  themselves  in 
procuring  means  with  which  to  continue  the  course.  .  .  . 
It  will  provide  an  opportunity  for  professors  in  smaller 
institutions,  teachers  in  academies  and  high  schools, 
ministers  and  others,  who  under  the  existing  system 
cannot  attend  a  college  or  a  university,  to  avail  them¬ 
selves  of  the  opportunity  of  University  residence. 

Much  more  might  be  said  with  reference  to  President 
Harper’s  originality  in  framing  his  plans  for  getting  the 
most  out  of  the  University  ;  but  enough  has  been  said  to 
indicate  how  far-sighted  and  full  of  promise  they  were  for 

G 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


98 

what  Professor  T.  C.  Chamberlin  calls  '  the  evolution  of  a 
true  University  in  the  largest  sense,  with  scholastic 
sympathies  as  broad  as  the  limits  of  inquiry,  with  altruistic 
devotion  as  broad  as  humanity.’ 

And  it  is  not  the  least  conspicuous  element  in  a  story  of 
this  University  that  it  affords  the  spectacle  of  a  great 
institution  built  up  from  nothing  into  a  richly-equipped 
University  thronged  by  thousands  of  students  ;  and  all 
the  main  lines  worked  out  according  to  the  scheme  of  one 
man,  and,  subject  to  continual  expansion  which  probably 
will  never  cease,  realized  or  set  in  train  during  the  fifteen 
years  in  which  he  occupied  the  post  of  President. 

Before  passing  on  to  R.  G.  Moulton’s  special  part  in  this 
great  undertaking,  something  should  be  said  about  the 
band  of  men  whom  President  Harper  persuaded  to  join 
him  in  the  great  adventure.  In  the  address  from  which 
quotation  has  been  made,  Professor  Chamberlin  said  : 

To  the  task  of  organizing  the  new  University  the 
Faculty  came  together  from  the  four  quarters  of  the 
earth.  Rarely,  if  ever,  at  the  inauguration  of  an 
institution  of  learning,  have  there  gathered  from  so 
many  lands  men  of  such  varied  academic  experiences 
and  such  diverse  points  of  view.  Not  only  from  the 
east  and  west,  the  north  and  the  south,  of  our  own  conti¬ 
nent,  but  from  the  Old  World  and  from  far-away  lands, 
men  and  women,  rich  in  experience,  serious  in  purpose, 
came  together  to  counsel  and  to  construct.  There 
were  indeed  antagonistic  views  and  sharp  challenges  of 
the  educational  worth  of  both  the  old  and  the  new. 
With  apologies  to  Kipling,  the  East  was  East,  and  the 
West  was  West,  but  the  twain  did  meet  and  fuse  into 
an  alloy  strong  and  fit. 

Our  great  first  President,  like  a  skilled  metallurgist, 
summoned  each  and  all  to  cast  into  the  melting-pot  his 
contribution  to  the  issues  in  hand.  With  masterly  skill 
he  stirred  the  heterogeneous  ingredients  and  watched 


CHICAGO 


99 

with  obvious  delight  the  fusing  process  as  the  fires  grew 
hot.  There  were  seethings  and  vaporings,  but  when 
these  had  passed  off  there  remained  the  goodly  residue 
sought.  Tried  thus  in  the  crucible  of  conflict,  the 
seasoned  product  was  cast  into  the  moulds  which  were 
to  give  shape  to  the  policies  and  practices,  the  statutes 
and  regulations,  of  the  young  institution. 

Not  infrequently  the  first  castings  ill  fitted  the  places 
for  which  they  were  devised,  but  they  were  promptly 
thrown  again  into  the  furnace  and  recast  in  better  moulds. 
And  so  the  mechanism  of  the  young  University,  planned 
in  the  main  by  our  great  leader,  but  bearing,  in  large 
degree,  the  impress  of  each  and  all,  grew  rapidly  into  an 
organization  of  unusual  efficiency. 

Such  was  the  fellowship  of  inspiration  and  sphere  of 
service  into  which  R.  G.  Moulton  was  led  to  enter. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


A  Strenuous  Ministry. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  President  Harper  should  have 
been  attracted  to  R.  G.  Moulton.  Here  was  a  man  who 
had  undoubtedly  made  good  in  England  under  conditions 
which  had  effectively  demonstrated  his  power  to  interest 
and  illuminate  audiences  along  a  line  essentially  his  own. 
That  this  was  not  a  merely  English  achievement  had  been 
shown  b\T  the  fact  that  his  first  lecturing  tour  in  the  States 
had  proved  a  growing  success,  manifest  even  in  the  early 
weeks  which  preceded  the  fateful  interview  with  Dr. 
Harper  in  the  Christmas  vacation,  1890-91.  But  there 
was  beyond  this  something  eminently  personal  which 
commended  the  English  lecturer  to  the  great  American 
educationalist.  Over  and  over  again  in  Dr.  Edgar  J. 
Goodspeed’s  bibliography  in  the  William  Rainey  Harper 
memorial  number  of  the  Biblical  World  occurs  the  word 
*  inductive  ’  in  the  title  of  a  book.  There  are,  e.g..  An 
Inductive  Latin  Method,  An  Inductive  Greek  Method, 
Inductive  Bible  Stories,  Inductive  Studies  in  English.  The 
point  may  be  a  small  one,  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  find 
in  it  a  meeting  ground  between  President  Harper  and  the 
champion  of  the  Inductive  Stud}?  of  Literature.  As  we 
have  seen,  it  is  probable  that  in  the  course  of  about  two 
years  before  the  opening  of  the  University  of  Chicago  the 
President  had  been  seeking  out  those  who  would  be  most 
likely  to  achieve  the  educational  purposes  upon  which  his 
mind  was  set ;  and  here  was  one  after  his  own  heart. 


IOO 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


xor 


He  found  him  on  the  held  common  to  them  both — that  of 
University  Extension,  which  we  have  already  seen  to  be 
part  of  Dr.  Harper's  cherished  projects  for  the  University 
which  was  to  be. 

It  is  equally  certain  that  R.  G.  Moulton  was  immediately 
impressed  and  attracted  by  Dr.  Harper,  for  whom  his 
admiration  continued  to  grow  throughout  the  whole  of 
their  association.  Because  of  his  determination  at  that 
time  1 1890—91’  not  to  settle  permanently  away  from 
England,  he  declined  to  consider  the  offer  of  a  chair  in  the 
proposed  new  University  of  Chicago,  but  allowed  himself 
to  enter  into  the  conditional  agreement  to  rive  one  rear's 
help  at  the  start.  He  used  to  relate  how,  in  the  course  of  a 
night  railway  journey  after  the  interview,  he  began  to 
regret  hawing  committed  himself  even  so  far.  and  decided 
to  write  at  once  asking  to  be  allowed  to  withdraw  from  ins 
undertaking.  However,  in  the  momiug  came  the  redac¬ 
tion  :  1  After  all,  it  is  only  for  a  year  !  ’  Had  that  letter 
been  written,  how  cmerent  the  rest  of  the  life-storv  might 
have  been  !  For  it  needed  only  a  few  months  of  the 
atmosphere  or  the  Middle  West — literallv  and  metaphoric¬ 
ally  stimulating — to  produce  the  absolute  comic tion  that 
in  America  he  would  find  the  best  field  for  his  work.  From 
Philadelphia  in  1891  he  had  written  :  ‘  People  are  open  to 
ideas  as  to  literary  study  in  general,  which  is  my  real 
interest  in  life,  even  L  mversity  Extension  being  secondary 
to  this.  In  nearly  all  the  positions  odered  to  him  during 
these  two  or  three  years  opportunities  would  have  been 
afforded  for  earning  out,  at  least  in  some  measure,  his 
ideas  along  both  these  hues.  But  growth  was  more  likely 
to  be  achieved  where  all  the  planting  was  new  than  ^ 
ground  where  the  space  was  ahead}-  occupied.  This  was 
one  reason,  therefore,  why  proposals  made  bv  President 
Harper  attracted  him  more  than  those  made  bv  any  other 
of  the  six  universities  from  which  he  received  definite 


102 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


offers  at  this  time.  He  was,  however,  bound  by  promises 
made  in  1891  to  give  full  consideration  to  two  others 
before  definitely  settling  with  Chicago.  Owing  to  this 
fact,  and  to  the  tremendous  pressure  of  work  amid  entirely 
new  conditions,  progress  was  slow  in  regard  to  final  settle¬ 
ment  of  the  terms  of  the  engagement.  Opportunities  for 
discussion  with  the  President  were  few  :  ‘  We  are  both  so 
busy  that  we  can  seldom  get  a  chance  to  talk  matters  over.' 

Time  being  so  very  fully  occupied,  it  is  interesting  to  see 
how  he  used  the  very  small  amount  available  for  relaxa¬ 
tion.  In  reply  to  a  question  about  the  buildings  in  course 
of  erection  for  the  great  World’s  Fair  of  1893,  he  writes 
(December,  1892)  :  ‘  I  have  not  yet  been  in  the  grounds, 
though  the  gate  is  not  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away,  and  I  go 
close  up  to  it  every  time  I  take  the  train  :  I  am  rapidly 
becoming  a  machine  with  two  tunes,  work  and  music.' 
The  music  ‘  tune  '  is  referred  to  later  as  ‘  the  delight  of  the 
week,  and  my  only  relaxation  :  Friday  afternoon  and 
Saturday  night,  the  Thomas  Concerts.’  As  to  the  World’s 
Fair  :  ‘  I  am  informed  that  I  have  been  made  one  of  the 
“  Advisory  Council  ”  on  the  matter  of  Religious  Congresses, 
but  I  fear  my  part  will  be  limited  to  making  a  single 
suggestion,  which  has  been  acknowledged  as  “  accept¬ 
able  ” — that  is,  I  presume,  the  phrase  for  shelving.' 
Beyond  this,  for  reasons  that  appear  below,  his  enjoyment 
of  the  great  Exposition  was  limited  to  appreciation  of 
some  of  the  architecture  after  the  doors  were  closed — the 
tout  ensemble  for  a  short  time,  and  afterwards  especially 
the  Field  Museum,  which  remained  in  stately  beauty  amid 
its  setting  of  park  and  lake  for  many  years. 

With  external  work  crowding  his  time  in  such  a  way,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  he  sought  and  obtained  release  from 
such  Spring  Quarter  and  Chautauqua  engagements  as 
had  been  under  consideration,  so  as  to  have  time  for  the 
section  of  his  life-work  which  was  definitely  in  hand. 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


103 


With  characteristic  devotion  to  the  magnum  opus  of  the 
moment,  he  arranged  with  President  Harper  for  postpone¬ 
ment  of  the  negotiations  concerning  his  proposed  position 
in  the  University  until  he  should  return  from  England  in 
December,  1893.  He  then  fulfilled  some  engagements  in 
the  East,  among  them  being— in  Philadelphia — a  special 
course  of  three  lectures  given  in  response  to  an  invitation 
signed  by  several  college  and  university  Presidents  and 
other  prominent  ‘  educators,’  to  explain  his  ‘  own  method 
of  literary  study,  criticism,  and  interpretation.’ 

The  eight  months  in  England  thus  secured  were  devoted 
to  his  book  on  The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible, 1  the 
importance  of  which  subject  in  all  schemes  of  education 
had  been  pressing  upon  him  more  and  more.  Interpreta¬ 
tive  recitals  and  lectures  during  his  first  visit  to  the 
United  States  had  been  very  successful.  On  his  return  to 
England  in  1891,  finding  the  University  Extension 
authorities  at  Cambridge  not  at  that  time  able  to  include 
in  their  lists  such  courses  by  a  layman,  he  had  made 
independent  arrangements  for  the  season  1891-92,  describ¬ 
ing  himself  as  ‘  Late  Lecturer  to  Cambridge  University 
Extension,’  although  he  did  not  really  resign  until  three 
years  later,  on  accepting  the  permanent  position  in 
Chicago.  A  total  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  Bible 
lectures  were  given — over  twenty  courses  of  six  lectures 
or  more,  including  (1892)  the  London  University  Extension 
Summer  Course  in  Literature,  and  courses  on  the  same 
subject  at  the  Summer  Meetings  of  Oxford  and  Edinburgh. 
He  had,  therefore,  been  able  to  apply  a  thorough  and  most 
satisfactory  ‘  lecture-test '  to  the  results  of  his  investiga¬ 
tion  of  Biblical  literary  forms,  and  the  eight  months’  work 
in  1893  was  all  that  was  necessary  to  complete  this  text¬ 
book  on  the  subject,  publication  of  which  had  already  been 
undertaken  by  Messrs.  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.,  of  Boston. 

Thus,  when  R.  G.  Moulton  reached  Chicago  again,  in 


104  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

December,  1893,  it  was  with  a  mind  free  to  throw  himself 
fully  into  organizing  within  University  walls  that  depart¬ 
ment  of  a  complete  education  which  he  felt  to  be  so 
unsatisfactorily  represented  or  entirely  lacking  in  existing 
schemes.  But  the  year  1893  had  been  a  year  of  financial 
panic,  the  effects  of  which  continued  for  some  years  ;  and 
when  negotiations  were  resumed  it  was  found  not  only 
that  the  sum  previously  assumed  as  financial  basis  was 
outside  the  strict  limits  now  insisted  upon  by  the  Trustees, 
but  also  that  they  were  naturally  somewhat  chary  of 
launching  out  with  a  new  department  on  the  scale  which 
both  the  President  and  the  Professor-to-be  considered  to 
be  demanded  by  the  nature  and  importance  of  the  subject. 
Ultimately,  before  R.  G.  Moulton  sailed  for  England  in 
August,  1894,  the  matter  was  practically  settled,  and  he 
resigned  his  connexion  with  Christ’s  College,  Cambridge, 
and  with  the  Cambridge  University  Extension  Movement. 
Thus  1894  marks  the  end  of  one  epoch  and  the  initiation 
of  another.  Henceforth,  although  he  never  became  a 
naturalized  citizen  of  the  United  States,  Chicago  became 
his  working  base,  and  any  work  in  England  was  purely 
subsidiary ;  and  it  remained  so  until  1919,  when  he  laid 
down  his  work  and  returned  home. 

A  career  such  as  his  cannot  easily  be  reduced  to 
biographical  requirements,  and  a  mere  chronicle  would  be 
a  weariness  both  to  write  and  to  read.  But  it  is  desirable 
to  deal  in  some  detail  with  the  decade  1890-1900,  not  only 
because  it  occupies  almost  the  exact  centre  of  his  most 
active  working  life,  but  because  it  was  so  markedly  a 
period  of  transition  from  the  theoretical  development  of 
ideas  to  their  realization  to  some  extent  in  practice. 

One  effect  of  the  commercial  depression  dating  from 
1893,  which  has  been  mentioned,  was  serious  delay  in  the 
formation  of  the  new  Literature  department  for  which  he 
was  to  be  responsible ;  and  it  was  as  ‘  Professor  of 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


105 


Literature  (in  English)  ’  that  he  commenced  his  con¬ 
nexion  with  the  University  of  Chicago,  his  time  being 
divided  between  University  lectures  and  classes  and 
University  Extension  work.  In  1901  the  title  of  his  chair 
was  changed  to  the  more  truly  descriptive  ‘  Professor  of 
Literary  Theory  and  Interpretation.’  Meanwhile  in  1898 
the  ‘  Department  of  Literature  (in  English)  ’  had  come 
into  being,  this  title  also  undergoing  alteration  in  1901, 
to  ‘  The  Department  of  General  Literature.’ 

To  those  interested  neither  of  these  titles  was  quite 
satisfactory.  Literature — freed  from  linguistic  limita¬ 
tions,  and  thus  made  universally  accessible — was  to  be 
scientifically  studied.  Therefore  ‘  The  Department  of 
Literature  ’ — without  any  qualifying  addition — seemed 
to  be  the  logical  title.  But  there  existed  already  Depart¬ 
ments  of  ‘  English  Language  and  Literature,’  ‘  Romance 
Languages  and  Literature,’  ‘  Greek  Language  and  Litera¬ 
ture,’  &c. — all  organized  in  accordance  with  the 
traditional  linking  of  the  study  of  any  particular  literature 
with  the  study  of  the  language  in  which  it  was  originally 
produced.  In  consideration  of  this  fact  and  of  the  newness 
of  the  study  of  Literature  as  a  whole,  it  was  decided  that  the 
department  must  be  launched  with  some  title  perhaps  less 
likely  to  be  misunderstood.  ‘  Comparative  Literature,’ 
of  course  recognized  as  an  important  division  of  study, 
was  at  that  time  rejected  as  a  title  for  the  department,  on 
account  of  the  implied  limitation  of  method.  The 
following  extract  from  the  Annual  Register  of  the  University 
of  Chicago  gives  the  best  idea  of  the  purposes  for  which  it 
was  founded. 

The  Department  of  General  Literature,  formerly 
known  as  the  Department  of  Literature  (in  English), 
has  for  its  theoretic  basis  the  unity  of  all  literature. 
The  purpose  of  the  department  is,  by  its  own  courses 
and  by  co-operation  with  Departments  VIII-XV, 


io6  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

to  afford  facilities  for  the  study  of  literature  not  limited 
by  the  divisions  between  particular  languages  and 
peoples. 

The  courses  of  the  department  are  open  to  students 
of  the  Senior  Colleges,  and  to  the  Graduate  School  of 
Arts  and  Literature.  They  are  designed  for  two 
different  classes  of  students  :  (i)  those  whose  main  work 
is  remote  from  literature,  but  who  may  desire  some 
literary  culture  as  an  element  of  liberal  education  ; 
(2)  those  who,  whether  in  their  Senior  College  or  their 
graduate  work,  desire  to  specialize  in  Literature. 
(Particular  courses  in  Biblical  Literature,  where  it  is  so 
specified,  but  no  others,  are  open  to  students  of  the 
Junior  Colleges  who  have  completed  twelve  majors.) 

The  work  of  the  department  falls  into  three  sections  : 
1.  General  Literature  (irrespective  of  divisions  between 
particular  languages),  treated  as  a  part  of  general  culture 
rather  than  specialized  study.  In  this  section  no 
knowledge  will  be  assumed  of  any  language  other  than 
English.  2.  The  Theory  of  Literature,  including 
Literary  Interpretation  and  Literary  Criticism.  For 
purposes  of  practical  education  it  is  believed  to  be 
impossible  without  the  use  of  literature  in  translation 
to  obtain  a  sufficiently  wide  induction  from  literary 
phenomena  to  make  studies  like  these  scientific.  In 
this  section  knowledge  of  the  original  languages  of  the 
literatures  concerned  may  or  may  not  be  assumed. 
3.  Comparative  Literature,  as  the  term  is  generally 
understood.  The  work  of  this  section  will  assume 
knowledge  of  the  original  languages  of  the  principal 
literatures  concerned. 

Senior  College  Courses. 

For  Senior  College  courses  no  knowledge  is  assumed 
of  any  language  other  than  English.  They  are  designed 
for  students  who  may  desire,  at  this  stage  of  their  educa¬ 
tion,  to  gain  an  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  great 
landmarks  of  world  literature,  acquaintance  with  which 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


107 


is  an  essential  of  liberal  education  alike  for  those  whose 
main  interests  are,  and  those  whose  main  interests  are 
not,  literary. 

The  department  being  so  largely  dependent  upon  others, 
it  was  not  always  possible  to  secure  adequate  representa¬ 
tion  of  all  three  sections  in  the  curriculum.  Of  course,  a 
department  organized  along  such  new  lines  cannot  easily 
command  the  funds  necessary  for  its  development,  how¬ 
ever  great  may  be  the  proved  educational  value  of  its 
training.  Many  students  feel  obliged— very  regretfully— 
to  forgo  what  is  exceedingly  attractive  to  them,  and 
concentrate  their  work  in  those  departments  where  the 
courses  offered  fit  in  more  exactly  with  the  requirements  for 
existing  positions  in  the  academic  world.  Nevertheless, 
in  ‘  Department  XVI  although  the  necessary  ‘  full-time  ’ 
staff  could  not  be  obtained,  excellent  sequences  were 
arranged  and,  during  the  twenty-one  years  that  R.  G. 
Moulton  was  the  active  head,  large  numbers  came  under 
its  influence— greatly  valuing  the  larger  view  and  grasp  of 
literature  thus  gained. 

Although  he  saw  the  realization  of  only  a  small  part  of 
his  vision,  this  was  for  R.  G.  Moulton  a  very  happy  side 
of  his  life-work.  With  the  true  sympathy  of  the  born 
teacher,  he  was  always  interested  in  his  students  and — 
here  as  everywhere — happy  in  his  relations  with  them, 
the  chief  regret  being  the  shortness  of  the  time  during 
which  he  could  influence  them.  Another  cause  for  regret 
was  that  so  little  intercourse  with  colleagues  in  the 
University  was  possible,  since  nothing  gave  him  more 
pleasure  than  hearing  friends  ‘  talk  shop  ’ — if  they  would  ! 
But  in  his  first  and  tentative  session  there  had  been  that 
blend  of  the  academic  and  the  extra-mural  work  which  is 
not  at  all  favourable  to  social  life,  and  it  continued  to 
characterize  his  work  until,  in  1910,  the  return  of  an 


io8  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

old  trouble — a  type  of  vertigo — necessitated  the  drastic 
diminution  of  outside  activities,  especially  where  incessant 
travelling  was  involved.  The  schedules  of  the  activities 
of  his  first  fifteen  years  at  Chicago  are  amazing  records  of 
work  and  endurance.  In  the  early  years  of  the  new 
century  we  find  him  ranging  over  the  States  of  Illinois, 
Iowa,  Ohio,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  Dela¬ 
ware,  Michigan,  Colorado,  Massachusetts,  Minnesota, 
Maryland,  Virginia,  Tennessee,  Wisconsin,  Louisiana, 
California,  Missouri,  Kansas,  to  say  nothing  of  lecturing 
expeditions  to  Montreal,  Toronto  and  other  cities  in 
Ontario,  Ottawa,  &c.  It  was  no  uncommon  thing  for 
him  to  travel  thirty  or  forty  hours  a  week  while  putting  in 
at  least  two  lectures  a  day  in  different  towns.  In  several 
seasons  we  find  him  taking  as  many  as  ten  courses  in  a 
fortnightly  circuit  of  ten  different  cities,  ranging  from 
five  hundred  miles  east  to  five  hundred  miles  west  of 
Chicago.  In  the  winter  of  1910  the  courses  were  planned 
in  the  five  cities  of  Wheeling,  West  Virginia  ;  Cincinnati, 
Ohio  ;  Louisville,  Kentucky ;  East  St.  Louis,  Illinois  ; 
and  Peoria,  Illinois.  This  circuit  necessitated  the  spending 
of  four  nights  a  week  in  trains.  No  wonder  that  there 
followed  the  record  of  the  ‘  revolutionizing  incident  ' 1 
referred  to  above,  involving  the  laying  aside  of  all  travel 
for  the  remaining  five  months  of  that  season,  only  his 
usual  work  in  the  University  being  continued.  This 
particular  health  trouble,  however,  again  yielded  to  expert 
treatment,  but  arrangements  for  the  completion  of  the 
interrupted  University  Extension  courses  could  not  be 
made.  It  may  be  mentioned  in  passing  how  small  was  the 
total  number  of  engagements  missed — through  illness  or 
other  cause — throughout  a  lecturing  career  of  fifty 
years  !  It  is  wonderful  to  note  how  quickly  he  got  back 
to  a  number  of  his  fields  of  service  ;  and  he  sums  up  the 

1  See  pp.  76,  107. 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


109 


situation  in  a  sentence,  under  the  date  June,  1911  :  '  Last 
year’s  disturbance  continues  as  redistribution  of  energy — 
with  question  of  making  permanent.’  There  we  have  a 
tireless,  undaunted  worker  forced  to  face  a  modification 
of  his  working  life,  but  defining  it  in  terms  not  of  repose 
but  of  redistribution  of  energy  !  His  indeed  was  the  dis¬ 
position  of  which  Charles  Wesley  sings  when  he  prays  to  be 
allowed  ‘  to  cease  at  once  to  work  and  live  !  ’ 

A  redistribution  of  time  also  became  necessary.  Work 
within  the  University  walls  was  concentrated  in  two 
quarters,  Autumn  and  Winter,  and  longer  visits  to  England 
became  possible.  Regular  University  Extension  work  in 
America  henceforth  disappears  from  his  programme,  and 
with  it  a  great  body  of  conspicuous  opportunities  for 
spreading  his  ideas ;  which  opportunities  he  surrendered 
with  very  keen  regret. 

During  those  years  of  intense  activity  the  University 
class-rooms  and  the  Extension  centres  do  not  by  any  means 
represent  the  fulness  of  his  operations.  Many  ‘  extras  ’ 
are  to  be  found  in  every  annual  record,  and  a  very  varied 
assortment  they  are.  Single  lectures,  addresses  and  short 
‘  campaigns  ’  at  colleges,  universities,  schools,  literary 
clubs,  churches,  ministers’  meetings,  or  at  various  con¬ 
ventions,  chautauquas,  gatherings  of  Teachers’  Associa¬ 
tions,  &c. — after  reading  these  lists  one  is  left  with  a 
sense  of  very  keen  demand  for  his  services  on  the  part  of 
educational  institutions  great  or  small,  afar  off  and  near 
at  hand ;  and  to  such  requests  he  was  very  responsive. 
The  ‘  missionary  ’  instinct  within  him  led  him  to  see  in 
such  fields  the  most  fruitful  opportunities  for  the  sowing  of 
his  seed. 

Some  of  the  more  important  engagements  at  a  distance 
from  Chicago  were  only  made  possible  by  special  arrange¬ 
ment  for  absence  from  the  University.  Thus  in  1902  ‘  The 
American  Society  for  the  Extension  of  University 


no 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


Teaching,’  referred  to  in  Chapter  II,  arranged  to  have  his 
services  for  six  weeks,  and  the  University  of  Chicago 
allowed  him  to  have  a  further  six  weeks  free  in  order  to 
accept  long-standing  invitations  to  deliver  courses  in  New 
York,  Boston,  and  elsewhere.  The  chief  course  in  New 
York  was  the  first  of  two  notable  courses  on  the  Literature 
of  the  Bible  given  in  St.  Bartholomew’s  Church.  These 
lectures  were  arranged  for  the  Lenten  seasons  of  1902  and 
1904,  by  invitation  of  Dr.  David  H.  Greer,  then  Rector  of 
St.  Bartholomew’s,  who  became  in  1903  Bishop  Coadjutor 
and  in  1908  Bishop  of  New  York.  Another  experience 
which  R.  G.  Moulton  found  most  interesting  was  when  he 
was  borrowed  from  the  University  of  Chicago  by  the 
Dioceses  of  California  and  Los  Angeles  jointly  for  a  month 
of  Bible  lecturing  from  church  and  cathedral  pulpits  and 
in  university  halls,  the  lectures  being  arranged  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Sunday-School  Commission  of  the  Diocese 
of  California. 

His  message  concerning  the  literary  study  of  the  Bible 
brought  him  everywhere  into  contact  with  those  who  were 
most  experienced  in  such  subjects,  as  well  as  with  those 
who  were  in  a  position  to  spread  in  their  turn  the  ideas 
which  he  gave  them.  This  work  being  in  a  field  common 
to  all  Churches  inspired  by  the  teaching  embodied  in  the 
Bible,  it  is  not  surprising  that  there  is  a  delightful  catholic¬ 
ity  about  his  visits  for  the  purpose  of  expounding  it. 
One  half  year  finds  him  addressing  one  ministers’  meeting 
(Inter-denominational)  at  Lowell,  Mass.,  and  another 
(Presbyterian)  at  New  York  ;  delivering  a  Lenten  course 
of  eight  lectures  in  St.  Bartholomew’s  Church,  New  York, 
speaking  on  Ecclesiastes  in  a  Jewish  synagogue  at  Phila¬ 
delphia,  while  he  also  gave  two  lectures  at  Union 
Theological  Seminary  in  New  York  and  during  the  same 
period  was  heard  on  Biblical  subjects  in  various  churches 
— Protestant  Episcopal,  Baptist,  Methodist,  Presbyterian 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


hi 


— in  Philadelphia,  Pittsburgh,  Cincinnati,  Chicago  and 
other  places.  The  impression  made  by  him  on  Jewish 
communities  is  noticeable,  and  his  correspondence  shows 
evidence  of  deep  appreciation  of  his  presentation  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Over  and  over  again  there  came  to  hand 
evidence  of  how  men  of  different  types  had  been  led  from 
indifference  to  Biblical  literature  into  earnest  and  intelli¬ 
gent  study  by  being  brought  face  to  face  with  the  Modern 
Reader’s  Bible.  Two  such  letters  lie  before  me  as  I  write. 
One  of  them  is  over  a  signature  well  known  even  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic  as  that  of  a  leading  captain  of  American 
finance  ;  and  it  begins  :  ‘  As  a  business  man  who  rather 
late  in  life  has  been  greatly  interested  in  Bible  reading  as 
a  result  of  seeing  the  Modern  Reader’s  Bible  .  .  .  ’  The 
other  was  from  a  secretary  of  an  institution  at  which  R.  G. 
Moulton  had  lectured  a  few  days  before,  who  wrote  :  ‘  One 
of  our  members,  a  very  intellectual  man,  but  an  agnostic, 
went  out  the  next  day  and  bought  several  volumes  of  the 
Modern  Reader’s  Bible  and  has  been  reading  it  with  great 
delight.’  The  history  of  the  success  of  this  presentation 
of  the  Bible,  which  will  ever  be  so  closely  associated  with 
his  name,  affords  a  striking  illustration  of  the  power  of 
that  Book  to  bring  home  its  own  message  ;  and  although 
nothing  in  the  nature  of  evangelism  came  within  the  scope 
of  his  activities,  there  is  no  room  for  doubt  that  by  his 
presentation  of  the  Bible  he  did  bring  into  a  new  relation¬ 
ship  to  the  claims  of  God  many  men  and  women 
who  would  not  have  been  reached  by  the  normal  appeal 
of  the  evangelist. 

By  such  a  worker,  of  course,  the  amount  of  pure 
‘  holiday  ’  taken  during  the  summers,  whether  in  England 
or  America,  was  not  large.  The  investigation  and  exposi¬ 
tion  of  the  study  of  literature,  as  he  conceived  it,  was 
continually  being  advanced  in  one  way  or  another. 
Opportunities  for  literary  evangelism  were  many,  but  it 


112 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


was  necessary  to  limit  the  use  of  these  in  order  to  safe¬ 
guard  the  time  for  private  study.  Invitations  to  take 
part  in  Summer  Meetings  at  Cambridge,  Oxford,  and 
Edinburgh  were  gladly  accepted  when  any  of  the  topics 
upon  which  he  was  accustomed  to  lecture  would  fit  in 
with  the  general  subject  selected  for  the  whole  meeting. 
He  was  also  sometimes  found  at  '  Summer  Schools  ’  of 
American  Universities,  and  at  ‘  chautauquas  ’ — especially 
at  the  original  Chautauqua  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
where  in  the  course  of  years  Bishop  Vincent  and  his  son, 
President  George  E.  Vincent  (now  President  of  the 
Rockefeller  Foundation,  New  York)  gave  him  opportunities 
which  he  greatly  valued.  With  reference  to  short 
'  campaigns  ’  and  single  lectures,  I  find  that  the  English 
engagements  for  the  arrangement  of  which  I  myself  was 
responsible  amounted  to  a  very  considerable  number. 
Among  these  were  the  return  visits  he  always  loved  to  pay 
to  his  old  fields  of  University  Extension  activity.  Pre¬ 
eminent  among  these  was  Newcastle-on-Tyne  ;  and  that 
notable  centre  of  intellectual  stimulus,  which  is  officially 
styled  the  Literary  and  Philosophical  Institution,  but  is 
far  more  often  known  among  its  devotees  by  the  affection¬ 
ate  and  intimate  designation  ‘  the  Lit.  and  Phil.,’  was  the 
sphere  of  some  of  his  most  successful  work  for  the  move¬ 
ment.  The  building  in  which  his  regular  Extension 
courses  had  been  given  was  burnt  down  in  1893,  but  the 
ideals  for  which  it  stood  were  fireproof,  and  in  new 
premises,  and  to  a  large  degree  from  a  new  constituency, 
R.  G.  Moulton  continued  in  later  years  to  receive  the  same 
welcome  and  draw  the  same  overflowing  audiences  as 
before.  I  usually  arranged  that  he  should  take  the  Sunday 
at  Brunswick  Chapel  with  Bible  lectures,  and  the  Lit.  and 
Phil,  with  other  Literature  lectures  for  two  or  three 
evenings  in  the  week  :  and,  as  a  rule,  both  buildings  were 
packed  to  the  doors.  Another  sphere  to  which  he  was  wont 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


n  3 

to  return  year  after  year  was  the  John  Rylands  Library 
at  Manchester,  where  Dr.  Henry  Guppy  was  always 
wishful  to  include  him  in  his  programme  of  lectures  for 
the  winter  and  spring,  and  where,  perhaps  more  than 
anywhere  else,  he  was  likely  to  be  listened  to  by  those  who 
possessed  a  specialized  knowledge  of  the  subjects  with 
which  he  dealt.  A  very  considerable  proportion  of  his 
lectures  during  these  English  visits  were  on  aspects  of  the 
literary  study  of  the  Bible,  and  there  was  never  any 
difficulty  in  finding  those  who  were  only  too  glad  to  open 
their  pulpits  to  him  for  his  unusual  but  pre-eminently 
attractive  and  fruitful  presentation  of  Biblical  literature. 
One  such  visit  calls  for  special  notice  on  personal  grounds. 
Reference  has  already  been  made  to  his  having  been  born 
in  Preston,  and,  as  I  was  stationed  in  that  town  from  1907 
to  1910,  I  arranged  with  him  that  he  should  come  for  a 
week  of  lectures  in  1909.  Not  the  least  interesting  feature 
of  the  visit  was  the  lecture  on  Saturday  evening  in  Lune 
Street  Chapel,  when  he  dealt  with  ‘  The  Bible— A  Book, 
a  Library,  a  Literature.’  It  was  there  that  he  had  been 
christened  just  sixty  years  before  ;  and  although  he  had 
given  University  Extension  lectures  in  Preston,  it  had  been 
prior  to  his  taking  up  the  literary  study  of  the  Bible,  and 
therefore  he  had  never  occupied  the  pulpit  before.  It  was 
fitting  that  the  chair  should  have  been  taken  on  that 
evening  by  his  elder  brother,  Lord  Justice  Fletcher 
Moulton,  as  he  then  was  ;  and  it  was  also  interesting  that 
among  those  on  the  platform  was  Sir  William  Ascroft,  who, 
nearly  thirty  years  before,  had  been  chairman  of  the 
committee  for  the  working  of  the  University  Extension 
lectures.  The  event  aroused  a  considerable  degree  of 
interest  in  Preston,  and  the  Guardian  gave  nearly  a  page 
to  an  illustrated  article  on  the  former  Lune  Street  pastor 
and  his  four  outstanding  sons. 

The  War  necessarily  interfered  greatly  with  his  English 

H 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


114 

visits,  so  far  as  such  fields  as  the  Universities  and  the 
Summer  Meetings  were  concerned.  He  came  as  usual  in 
1915  and  1916,  but  was  obliged  to  remain  in  America  in 
1917  and  1918.  In  those — his  last  two  years  before  retir¬ 
ing — he  did  full-time  work  in  the  University.  At  times 
during  the  continuance  of  the  War,  while  in  no  case  under¬ 
taking  anything  in  the  nature  of  ‘  propaganda  work,'  he 
would,  when  specially  requested,  give  addresses  designed 
to  help  in  interpreting  the  two  great  English-speaking 
peoples  to  each  other,  in  the  interests  of  mutual  under¬ 
standing  and  helpfulness.  Such  organizations  as 
‘  Luncheon  Clubs  ’ — of  very  varied  membership — 
furnished  the  chief  occasions  for  these  talks.  But,  also 
in  response  to  a  demand,  a  new  lecture  or  course  title 
appears  on  his  list :  ‘  The  Bible  as  a  Document  of  Inter¬ 
nationalism.’  In  these  lectures,  through  the  purely 
literary  interpretation  of  the  great  Book,  his  hearers 
found  themselves  helped  to  a  larger  view  of  the  whole 
subject  and  clearer  thinking  on  the  immediate  questions 
which  filled  the  minds  of  all. 

Before  leaving  the  matter  of  his  English  visits  there  is 
one  more  that  calls  for  notice.  In  August  1896,  in  the  old 
Norfolk  Street  Chapel,  Sheffield — which  stood  on  the  site 
now  occupied  by  the  Victoria  Hall — R.  G.  Moulton  was 
united  in  matrimony  to  Alice  Maud  Cole,  youngest  surviv¬ 
ing  daughter  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Skelton  Cole.  Their  home 
had  meant  much  to  him  ever  since  he  first  gave  lectures  in 
Sheffield  in  1875.  Mr.  Skelton  Cole  was  among  the 
leaders  in  educational  matters  in  Sheffield.  He  was  a 
very  active  member  of  the  School  Board  from  the  first, 
and  was  largely  concerned  in  the  organization  of  the 
‘  Central  School  ’ — the  first  of  its  kind  in  England — 
which  was  to  provide  a  connecting  link  between  the 
education  given  in  the  Primary  Elementary  Schools  and 
that  higher  education  which  had  recently  been  made 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


ii5 

possible  in  Sheffield  through  the  establishment  of  Firth 
College.  This  College,  which  ultimately  developed  into 
the  University  of  Sheffield,  was  the  direct  outcome  of  the 
University  Extension  Movement.  Mr.  Skelton  Cole  was 
a  trustee  of  Firth  College  from  its  foundation,  and  treasurer 
of  the  Technical  School,  in  which  he  was  always  keenly 
interested  ;  and  other  educational  institutions  in  the  town 
also  received  much  of  his  time  and  thought.  With  so 
active  an  interest  in  all  these  developing  educational 
schemes,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  there  was  much  in 
common  between  him  and  R.  G.  Moulton,  in  whose  thought 
also  the  organization  of  education  was  very  prominent. 
Besides  this  there  was  great  sympathy  with  the  literary 
projects  and  ideas  of  the  younger  man  on  the  part  of  both 
Mr.  Skelton  Cole  and  his  wife,  the  personality  and 
intellectual  discernment  of  Mrs.  Skelton  Cole  especially 
always  counting  for  much  to  R.  G.  Moulton.  A  unique 
place  in  the  family  life  soon  became  his,  there  being  many 
tastes  in  common,  and  the  carrying  forward  of  these 
associations  into  his  later  life  through  his  marriage  was 
always  a  source  of  deep  satisfaction  to  him.  About  the 
happy  married  life  which  thus  began,  and  lasted  for  twenty- 
eight  years,  those  most  intimately  concerned  would  desire 
that  nothing  be  said.  Let  it  suffice  if  I  say  that  a 
community  of  taste  as  well  as  of  affection  made  them 
comrades  in  the  fullest  sense,  each  able  and  eager  to  enter 
into  the  work  and  recreation  of  the  other.  Nowhere  was 
that  more  manifest  than  in  the  field  of  music.  Miss  Maud 
Cole  came  of  a  musical  family,  and  had  been  under 
inspiring  teachers— amongst  them  for  a  time  that  brilliant 
and  discerning  pianist,  Mr.  Frederick  Dawson— and  an 
insight  into  the  technique  of  piano  playing  was  added  to  a 
spirit  of  musical  appreciation  and  understanding.  It 
followed  that  throughout  their  married  life  R.  G.  Moulton 
and  his  wife  ever  found  in  music  the  richest  enjoyment  and 


n6 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


the  completest  recreation.  They  availed  themselves  of 
the  great  musical  opportunities  of  Chicago  as  far  as 
professional  work  would  permit.  However  exacting  were 
the  demands  upon  his  time  and  energies,  from  October  to 
April  a  determined  effort  was  made — not  always  successful 
— to  keep  free  on  Friday  afternoon  and  Saturday  evening 
in  order  to  attend  the  concerts  of  the  Chicago  Symphony 
Orchestra,  which  was  for  years  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Theodore  Thomas  Orchestra,  after  the  great  conductor 
who  gave  the  orchestra  its  outstanding  place  in  the 
musical  life  of  America.  The  same  programme — always 
most  carefully  planned — was  given  at  these  two  perform¬ 
ances  in  the  week,  thus  enabling  those  who  attended  both 
concerts  to  obtain  what  amounted  to  much  more  than 
double  the  mental  grasp  of  new  or  intricate  musical 
works.  In  performances  of  the  Grand  Opera  Season, 
which  also  became  one  of  the  important  institutions  of 
Chicago,  he  was  occasionally  able  to  enjoy  anew  the 
experiences  of  Dresden,  Baireuth,  and  other  places  ;  but 
pure  orchestral  music,  magnificently  rendered  as  by  the 
Chicago  Symphony  Orchestra,  remained  his  greatest 
musical  interest.  Tracing  related  principles  underlying 
form  and  development  in  both  music  and  literature,  he 
found  a  grasp  of  the  one  of  great  assistance  in  the  inter¬ 
pretation  of  the  other,  and  while  listening  to  a  great 
musical  work  would  not  infrequently  see  quite  suddenly 
the  solution  of  some  literary  puzzle.  How  much  all  this 
meant  to  him  during  the  Chicago  years,  and  how  the  value 
of  such  support  was  recognized,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
he  was  requested  to  give  the  In  Memoriam  address  at  a 
Congregational  Church  in  the  University  neighbourhood 
on  the  occasion  of  the  great  conductor’s  death  in  January, 
1905.  That  address  is  so  revealing  in  respect  of  the 
speaker  as  well  as  of  the  subject  of  his  appreciation  that 
it  may  fittingly  find  a  place  in  these  pages  : 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


ii  7 

A  great  citizen  of  Chicago  has  passed  from  among  us  : 
I  am  inclined  to  say,  the  greatest  of  our  fellow-citizens, 
for  can  we  show  any  name  that  has  such  currency 
throughout  the  whole  intellectual  world  as  the  name  of 
Theodore  Thomas  ?  The  mourning  inseparable  from 
the  first  announcement  of  death  is  over  ;  we  are  here 
to-day,  not  to  bewail  a  lost  presence,  but  rather  to 
inaugurate  an  eternal  memory.  It  was  a  great  presence 
while  it  was  with  us.  To  many  thousands  of  Chicago 
people  during  the  last  thirteen  years  no  single  figure 
has  been  more  familiar  than  that  of  the  stately  conductor 
at  his  desk,  dignified  in  its  combined  energy  and  restraint. 
Those  of  us  who  knew  Theodore  Thomas  in  private  life 
found  a  personality  genial  and  cheery,  rejoicing  in 
sympathy  and  good  fellowship.  We  knew  at  the  same 
time  that  this  was  the  surface  aspect  of  a  character 
deeply  based  in  severity,  catholicity,  reverence.  In 
severity :  the  severity  of  the  scholar,  intolerant  of 
imperfection,  refusing  all  compromise  with  the  second 
best,  that  has  no  arithmetic  with  which  to  measure 
trouble  against  attainment,  that  could  afford  to  wait 
for  appreciation.  In  catholicity  :  for  while  the  leader 
admitted — what  every  man  has  a  right  to  admit— 
strong  predilections  and  preferences,  yet  the  composers 
who  were  least  his  favourites  never  received  from  their 
own  devotees  such  splendid  justice  as  was  rendered 
them  in  the  programmes  and  performances  of  the 
Chicago  Orchestra.  And  I  add  reverence,  as  the  real 
basis  in  Theodore  Thomas  of  his  absolute  fidelity  of 
interpretation,  as  rigorously  inductive  as  physical  science, 
that  saw  only  the  musical  truth  before  him,  disdaining 
modifications  in  the  interest  of  sensation  or  novelty. 

Such  high  ideals  Theodore  Thomas  carried  through 
every  phase  of  a  musical  life  ;  beginning  with  the 
simpler  role  of  the  virtuoso,  passing  on  to  the  complex 
tasks  of  direction  and  management  ;  the  private  soldier 
developing  into  the  leader,  and  the  strategist  of  musical 
enterprise.  And  in  this  case  great  powers  were  not 


n8  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

hampered  by  unfavourable  surroundings.  It  was  given 
to  Theodore  Thomas  to  see  his  life-work  accomplished, 
reaching  the  goal  he  had  himself  indicated  ;  that  most 
remarkable  endorsement  of  art  triumph  by  democracy 
when  the  poor  man’s  mite  and  the  thousands  of  the 
millionaire  co-operated  to  build  the  material  home  that 
should  make  the  highest  art  practicable.  His  life 
achieved  all  this  and  then  closed.  He  just  touched 
the  threescore  and  ten,  he  just  touched  his  crowning 
success,  and  then  passed  away,  in  the  moment  of 
attainment,  in  the  fulness  of  mastery,  without  a  hint 
of  diminishing  vigour  :  a  career  that  from  the  very  first 
had  steadily  moved  with  ever  widening  and  brightening 
development  to  its  full  height.  *  The  path  of  the  just 
is  as  the  light  of  Dawn,  shining  more  and  more  unto  the 
perfect  Day.’ 

The  address  continues  with  a  striking  comparison 
between  the  Chicago  Orchestra  and  the  University  : 

A  University  has  two  distinct  functions.  On  the 
one  hand  it  is  a  congregation  of  specialists,  pursuing 
their  several  studies  and  training  new  specialists  to 
succeed  them.  Its  second  function  is  to  awaken  culture 
in  others  :  not  only  does  it  train  the  young  entrusted 
to  it,  but  it  seeks  to  extend  its  influence  outside,  in 
fostering  culture  amongst  the  busy  men  and  women 
who  have  other  occupations  than  that  of  learning. 
Now  the  Chicago  Orchestra  is  a  band  of  musical  scholars  ; 
the  least  of  them  an  expert,  while  its  leaders  are  finished 
scholars  in  their  own  lines,  covering  the  whole  range  of 
some  side  of  music  and  enlarging  it.  All  of  these  would 
testify  to  the  great  inspiration  they  have  received  from 
their  leader.  But  it  was  specially  distinctive  of  Theodore 
Thomas  that  he  realized  so  strongly  the  other  University 
function,  the  training  not  of  performers  in  technique 
but  of  the  audience  in  appreciation.  With  his  carefully 
planned  programmes,  representing  the  many-sidedness 
and  the  regular  development  of  music,  the  frequent 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


119 

repetitions  of  the  newer  or  more  notable  compositions, 
and,  above  all,  the  lucid  and  inspiring  performance,  it 
has  been  possible  for  a  whole  generation  of  adults  to 
feel  that  they  were  continuing  their  education  after 
they  had  left  school.  I  always  point  to  the  work  of  the 
Chicago  Orchestra  as  the  most  successful  example  of  a 
University  Extension  Movement. 

And  the  field  in  which  all  this  work  has  been  accom¬ 
plished  is  Music — the  one  characteristic  art  of  our 
modern  world.  I  hear  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  Art 
with  which  I  can  feel  no  sympathy  :  a  narrow-visioned 
pessimism  that  finds  comfort  in  deploring  modern 
Philistinism,  and  invidiously  compares  some  commerce- 
ridden  Chicago  with  some  artistic  Athens  of  old.  When 
I  study  ancient  Greece,  I  seem  to  see — once  you  strip 
off  surface  accidents — a  world  very  much  resembling 
our  own  world.  To  contemporary  observers  Athens 
seemed  a  gossiping  society  ever  in  search  of  novelty  ; 
its  comic  poets  satirize  just  what  our  satirists  attack  : 
its  public  life  is  seen  as  a  struggle  of  self-interest  and 
corruption  against  patriotic  ideals,  just  as  with  us. 
But — it  is  answered — look  at  Athens  itself,  a  city  of 
architectural  masterpieces,  with  miracles  of  inimitable 
statuary  :  what  have  we  to  compare  with  this  ?  Nothing 
of  the  same  kind.  But  when  we  turn  to  Music,  the  case 
is  reversed  ;  here  it  is  we  who  are  the  giants  and  the 
ancient  world  the  pigmies.  Modern  music  is  linked 
with  mechanism,  of  all  things  the  most  progressive  ; 
the  same  mechanical  advance  which  has  built  loco¬ 
motives  and  engineered  ocean  canals  has  steadily 
developed  the  instruments  of  the  musical  orchestra, 
and  each  invention  of  the  instrument  has  enlarged  the 
capacity  of  musical  thought.  Nor  is  this  all.  In 
architecture  and  sculpture  the  ideal  and  its  realization 
are  accomplished  together,  and  further  time  can  do 
nothing  but  deface.  Music  divides  creative  honours 
between  the  composer  and  the  performer  ;  when  the 
composer  has  once  for  all  made  his  creation,  a  field  of 


120 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


not  less  artistic  possibilities  opens  for  the  performer,  in 
approaching  nearer  and  nearer  to  a  realization  of  the 
ideal,  that  for  ever  remains  unattained.  Theodore 
Thomas,  I  presume,  could  not  have  written  the  Fifth 
Symphony  :  but  I  doubt  if  Beethoven  or  Tschaikowsky 
had  the  organizing  and  directing  powers  that  could 
attain  such  a  realization  of  their  own  masterpieces  as 
we  have  been  privileged  to  hear  from  our  own  Chicago 
Orchestra.  Thus  the  greatness  which  our  leader  achieved 
for  himself  is  a  greatness  in  just  that  which  makes  us 
great,  which  finds  for  Chicago  and  our  modern  times 
even  in  the  field  of  art  a  place  beside  the  greatness  of 
the  past. 

The  sacred  associations  of  the  place  in  which  I  speak 
make  it  fitting  that  I  should  add,  this  same  music  is 
the  most  religious  of  all  the  arts,  the  closest  counterpart 
of  our  modern  religion,  which  draws  together  all  peoples, 
nations  and  tongues  into  one  deep  harmony  under  one 
Supreme  Leader  ;  even  as  in  the  music  of  Theodore 
Thomas,  German  and  French,  Slav  and  Russian,  Italian 
and  Norse,  Bohemian  and  Hungarian,  their  national 
characteristics  not  effaced  but  emphasized,  blended 
together  in  one  symphony  of  common  appreciation  and 
joy.  It  has  been  a  grand  life,  that  was  permitted  to 
consecrate  high  powers  to  the  advancement  of  its  day 
and  generation,  in  an  art  which  is  the  distinctive  glory 
of  modern  times,  the  art  which  is  the  united  world's 
worship  of  the  Divine  as  it  is  revealed  in  the  form  of 
beauty. 


It  was  in  the  full  tide  of  work,  achievement,  and  appre¬ 
ciation  of  all  that  life  brings,  that  the  time  drew  near  when, 
under  the  rules  of  the  University,  R.  G.  Moulton  would  have 
to  retire  under  the  age-limit.  Perhaps  on  the  whole  it 
may  be  said  that  this  age-limit  regulation  intervened  as  a 
providential  means  of  affording  an  exit  from  a  work  which 


A  STRENUOUS  MINISTRY 


121 


he  loved,  but  the  strenuousness  of  which  he  would  have 
been  loth  to  abate  under  the  force  of  anything  short  of 
sheer  compulsion. 

It  was  on  June  io,  1919,  that  he  bade  farewell  to  the 
sphere  of  his  labours  for  the  previous  twenty-seven  years, 
to  the  University  which  he  had  seen  grow  up  from  very 
small  beginnings.  In  a  record  of  the  annual  enrolment  of 
students  we  find  that  in  the  first  academic  year  (1892-3) 
the  total  number  was  744.  In  1918-9 — his  last  year 
before  retiring — 8,635  were  registered,  this  number  being, 
however,  almost  2,000  fewer  than  in  1916-17,  which  was 
the  last  year  preceding  the  entry  of  the  United  States  into 
the  Great  War.1  This  is  a  remarkable  record  for  a  teacher 
to  see  during  his  period  of  service,  and  it  must  have  been 
with  deep  emotion  that  he  delivered  the  oration  on  that 
day  in  June,  1919.  He  chose  as  his  theme  ‘  The  Turning- 
point  in  the  History  of  Culture  ’ — which  he  discerned 
in  the  meeting  of  Hellenic  and  Hebraic.  It  was  a  favourite 
field  of  his,  and  much  of  what  he  said  was  what  might  have 
been  expected  of  him,  judging  from  the  trend  of  his  books. 
But  its  concluding  words  constitute  an  apologia  pro  vita 
sua,  and  as  such  I  quote  them  : 

You  will  perhaps  say  that  all  this  is  an  individual 
interpretation  of  things,  biased  by  the  literary  pro¬ 
fessor’s  wish  to  exalt  literature  as  the  natural  food  of 
culture,  with  special  readings  of  disputed  questions. 
Very  likely  you  may  be  right.  But  what  you  have  been 
hearing  this  afternoon  is  not  a  Doctor’s  thesis,  to  be 
controversially  defended  against  the  cross-examination 
of  a  committee  of  specialists.  Take  it  rather  as  the  last 
speech  and  confession  of  a  teacher  retiring  from  active 
service  after  a  fifty-year  job  and  leaving  the  field  to 

1  By  1924,  when  R.  G.  Moulton  had  been  ‘  Professor  Emeritus’  for 
five  j^ears,  the  total  number  of  students  had  risen  to  about  13,000, 
partly  through  the  full  consolidation  with  the  University  proper  of  the 
Medical  School,  which  had  hitherto  been  ‘  affiliated.’ 


122 


l 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

others  ;  leaving  it  to  colleagues  brilliantly  equipped  in 
their  several  fields  and  with  years  of  distinguished 
service  ahead  of  them  ;  leaving  it  to  you,  young  men 
and  women,  who  are  this  day  to  put  on  your  academic 
armour  with  which  to  face  the  problems  of  the  future. 
I  have  simply  been  putting  to  you  what  the  situation 
looks  like  to  me  as  I  retire.  A  great  saying  of  Bacon 
comes  to  me  as  I  sum  up — itself  an  echo  from  biblical 
wisdom.  '  Take  your  stand  upon  the  paths  of  antiquity  ' 
— but  the  sentence  does  not  end  there — '  in  order  to  see 
clearly  in  what  directions  you  shall  make  your  progress.’ 
In  the  chronic  difficulty  of  reading  correctly  the  past 
and  present,  in  the  special  perplexity  today  of  speculat¬ 
ing  upon  the  future,  you  have  one  safe  clue  if  you 
recognize  the  foundation  of  our  civilization  as  resting 
on  the  meeting  of  Hellenic  and  Hebraic,  if  by  granting 
in  education  equal  play  to  classical  and  biblical  literature 
you  maintain  the  sanity  of  our  modern  culture.1 

Printed  in  the  University  of  Chicago  Record,  July  1919,  p.  207. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


Eventide 

There  was  no  question  of  balancing  relative  advantages  as 
to  possible  places  for  retirement,  since  that  had  been  settled 
for  years.  In  1912  Mrs.  Moulton’s  two  sisters  and  one 
of  her  brothers  had  removed  from  Sheffield  to  Tunbridge 
Wells  ;  and  in  the  new  manage  it  was  arranged  that  ‘  the 
Americans  ’  should  share  the  house  as  their  base  when 
on  visits  to  England,  and  as  their  ultimate  home  when 
the  time  came  for  retirement.  So  it  was  at  Hallamleigh 
that  a  radiant  and  fruitful  eventide  of  five  years  was 
passed.  R.  G.  Moulton’s  life-passion  was  strong  to  the  end, 
and  both  by  voice  and  pen  he  continued  to  spread 
abroad  his  message.  Considerable  work  was  done  towards 
the  preparation  of  '  studies  ’  which  he  had  always  hoped 
to  publish,  dealing  with  particular  literary  masterpieces. 
To  this  period  belongs  also  the  production  of  The  Modern 
Reader's  Bible  for  Schools  (the  New  Testament  in  1920  and 
the  Old  Testament  in  1922),  and  of  that  tasteful  little 
volume  which  bears  the  designation  ‘  Twenty-fifth  and 
final  volume  of  The  Modern  Reader's  Bible,’  and  is  entitled 
‘  How  to  Read  the  Bible.'  It  was  an  appropriate  subject 
for  his  last  published  volume.  He  lectured  for  the 
London,  Cambridge,  and  Oxford  Universities'  Extension 
Boards  in  London,  Hastings,  Cambridge,  Tunbridge  Wells, 
and  other  places  within  manageable  distance  from  his 
home.  He  was  a  yearly  visitor  to  the  John  Rylands 
Library  at  Manchester.  Moreover,  he  would  make  short 


123 


124 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


lecture  tours  which  I  arranged  in  the  North  of  England, 
visiting  especially  the  scenes  of  his  early  labours.  Although 
the  generation  which  had  belonged  to  that  earlier  life  of 
lecturing  in  England  had  to  a  great  extent  passed  away, 
in  his  seventies  he  proved  the  same  attraction  as  he  had 
been  in  his  thirties.  In  particular  he  was  glad  to  take  as 
many  as  possible  of  the  numerous  opportunities  afforded 
for  furthering  the  understanding  of  the  Bible  by  his 
lectures  and  interpretative  recitals — this  being  a  new  field 
of  service  since  his  earlier  University  Extension  years. 
Public  work  was  interrupted  in  November  1920  by  a 
severe  illness  which  put  a  stop  to  all  lecturing  for  many 
months,  but  a  marvellous  recovery  made  possible  a 
resumption  of  some  of  his  activities,  although  with  con¬ 
siderable  limitation  of  travelling. 

In  July  1923,  the  Jubilee  of  the  Cambridge  University 
Extension  was  celebrated  with  a  Conference  in  which  he 
took  part.  On  that  occasion  he  was  one  of  three  upon 
whom  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  was  conferred  at  a 
Congregation  presided  over  by  the  Vice-Chancellor  (Dr 
Pearce,  Master  of  Corpus  Christi  College)  in  the  absence 
through  illness  of  the  Chancellor,  the  Right  Hon.  the  Earl 
of  Balfour,  K.G.,  O.M.  In  the  same  year  he  was  elected 
a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature,  and  a  Vice- 
President  of  the  Shakespeare  Reading  Society. 

Early  in  1924  a  course  of  lectures  on  Spenser’s  Faerie 
Queene  was  given  at  Tunbridge  Wells  on  the  invitation 
of  the  Oxford  University  Extension  Delegacy,  this  com¬ 
pleting  his  fiftieth  season  of  public  educational  work. 
Arrangements  had  been  made  for  lectures  at  the  Cambridge 
Summer  Meeting  and  for  courses  under  both  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  University  Extension  in  the  following  autumn. 
But  in  April  serious  symptoms  manifested  themselves, 
and  all  engagements  for  subsequent  months  had  to  be 
cancelled.  On  Sunday,  April  27,  in  the  Church  of  St. 


EVENTIDE 


125 


Edward  the  King,  Cambridge — the  church  of  Frederick 
Denison  Maurice — he  spoke  in  public  for  the  last  time. 
He  had  chosen  for  his  subject  the  ninetieth  and  ninety- 
first  Psalms,  always  treated  by  him  together  as  being 
expansions  of  two  lines  from  the  Blessing  of  Moses  : 

The  eternal  God  is  thy  dwelling-place. 

And  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms. 

There  could  have  been  no  more  fitting  theme  for  a 
last  public  utterance  ;  and  there  was  no  suggestion  of 
failing  strength  that  morning.  But  his  condition  was 
more  critical  than  he  or  others  knew  at  the  moment. 

A  three  months’  fight  against  increasing  physical 
weakness  was  of  no  avail,  and  the  end — hastened  by 
pneumonia — came  on  August  15,  1924. 

..The  following  day  a  telegram  was  received  from  Dr. 
E.  D.  Burton,  then  President  of  the  University  of  Chicago, 
who  happened  to  be  in  England,  asking  to  make  an 
appointment.  The  only  reply  to  be  given  was  that  his 
old  friend  and  colleague  had  passed  away  the  day  before  : 
and  when  he  came  to  Tunbridge  Wells  it  was  to  pay  the 
last  tribute  for  himself  and  the  University  at  the  funeral 
service. 

How  R.  G.  Moulton  was  regarded  by  those  who  were  his 
colleagues  is  shown  by  the  appreciation  contributed  to  the 
University  Record  by  Vice-President  Tufts  when  the  news 
of  his  death  reached  Chicago : 

It  does  not  seem  long  since  Professor  Moulton  was 
among  us,  a  figure  both  scholarly  and  genial,  a  man  whose 
enthusiasm  kindled  a  like  spirit  in  all  his  associates, 
and  whose  influence  even  among  the  youngest  students 
among  whom  he  worked  was  unique.  Coming  from 
England,  where  his  first  notable  successes  were  achieved, 
he  brought  to  America  and  to  the  University  of  Chicago 


126 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


the  essence  of  British  scholarly  tradition.  He  brought 
also  a  generous  conception  of  education  for  the  com¬ 
munity  and  a  body  of  well-tempered  methods,  which 
made  him  from  the  outset  a  distinctive  figure.  He  was  an 
innovator.  As  such  he  assumed  a  rightful  place  at  a 
time  when  pioneers  in  education  were  establishing  the 
reputation  of  the  University.  At  our  University  he 
has  left  no  successor  in  the  extra-mural  field. 

.  .  .  When  the  University  of  Chicago  opened  its 
doors  in  1892  he  was  elected  Professor  of  Literature  in 
English.  As  he  interpreted  the  function  of  his  chair 
it  was  to  present  the  great  classics  of  the  world’s  liter¬ 
ature,  particularly  those  which  have  found  such  fitting 
translation  into  English  as  makes  them  in  a  sense  a 
part  of  English  literature.  Deuteronomy,  Job,  and 
the  Greek  tragedies  lived  again  in  his  presentations. 
In  1901  the  title  of  his  chair  was  changed  to  that  of 
Professor  of  Literary  Theory  and  Interpretation,  but 
there  was  no  fundamental  change  in  his  message.  His 
selection  was  one  of  the  most  fortunate  instances  of  the 
far-seeing  vision  of  President  Harper. 

From  the  year  of  his  appointment  until  his  retirement 
from  active  service  here,  Richard  Green  Moulton  toiled 
as  few  men  have  toiled  to  bring  to  a  public  far  beyond 
the  University  quadrangles  his  message  of  the  beauty 
of  literature  and  the  beauty  of  religion.  He  taught 
classes,  many  of  them  undergraduate  classes,  in  which 
the  works  of  Shakespeare  were  illuminated  in  a  new  way 
for  young  students  ;  he  travelled  far  and  wide,  lecturing 
to  large,  popular  audiences  ;  he  wrote  book  after  book. 
He  worked  without  sparing  his  strength.  His  voice 
and  pen  were  never  idle,  and  both  were  at  the  service  of 
the  University  and  of  the  people  throughout  the 
years.  .  .  . 

So  passed  a  great  scholar  and  teacher. 

From  among  the  many  striking  tributes  by  former 
students  I  select  that  of  an  American  journalist,  who  on 


EVENTIDE 


127 

hearing  of  his  death  wrote  from  Paris  a  letter  to  The  Times 
containing  the  following  appreciation  : 

England  has  had  few  Ambassadors  in  America  who 
exerted  a  finer  influence  than  Professor  Richard  Green 
Moulton,  of  whose  death  I  have  just  read  in  The  Times. 
This  remarkable  man  carried  a  human  and  intellectual 
richness  that  made  him  a  potent  force.  As  a  young 
journalist  I  attended  his  lectures  at  the  University  of 
Chicago,  and  knew  him  well.  The  memory  of  the 
association  is  a  beautiful  one.  Professor  Moulton  was 
a  great  scholar,  teacher,  and  interpreter,  and  he  was 
also  a  great  human  being.  The  spirit  he  radiated  made 
him  beloved  by  all  with  whom  he  came  in  contact. 

This  reiteration  of  the  word  ‘  human  ’  is  to  be  noted  ;  for 
it  tells  of  one  who  never  lost  the  note  of  the  ‘  man  '  in  the 
preoccupations  of  the  ‘  scholar.’  Earlier  in  these  pages 
it  has  been  said  that  in  contemplation  of  the  man  and  his 
work  the  impression  is  produced  of  a  singularly  harmonious 
whole,  and  reference  has  also  been  made  to  the 
philosophical  bent  of  his  mind.  The  suggestion  that 
‘  philosophy  is  only  a  fine  word  for  seeing  things  in 
perspective  ’  is  significant  in  connexion  with  his  continual 
insistence  upon  the  idea  of  correct  perspective  in  literary 
study,  in  education  and  in  life  as  a  whole.  There  is 
unusual  evidence  that  the  intellectual  and  educational  work 
which  R.  G.  Moulton  at  the  age  of  thirty  set  himself 
was — with  all  its  enlarging  possibilities — kept  steadily 
before  him  as  a  life  object,  his  own  developing  powers 
and  opportunities  being  constantly  brought  into  adjust¬ 
ment  with  it.  Having  begun  his  career  with  this  high 
ideal  of  ‘  service  to  the  passing  generation,’  he  had  been 
fortunate  in  finding  a  place  among  the  early  University 
Extension  lecturers,  with  what  were  at  that  time  excep¬ 
tional  opportunities  for  coming  into  contact  with  the  minds 
and  fives  of  all  classes — the  cultured  and  the  uneducated  ; 


128 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


those  with  much  leisure  for  intellectual  pursuits,  and  those 
with  very  little — all  brought  together  by  the  common 
desire  to  ‘  get  understanding.’  In  this  developing  move¬ 
ment  and  the  method  of  teaching  evolved  within  it  he 
saw  a  most  important  advance  towards  bridging  ‘  the 
chasm  between  the  thinkers  and  the  rest  of  the  world,’ 
and  his  personal  powers  of  interpretation  and  presentation 
were  cultivated  and  kept  at  their  best,  so  as  to  enable 
him  to  take  his  part  in  that  task.  But  still  more  important 
to  him  was  the  subject  he  had  chosen  to  present,  which  he 
regarded  as  a  universal  medium  for  that  larger  ‘  study  of 
life  ’  than  is  possible  in  the  experience  of  one  individual, 
one  nation  or  one  age,  and  which  is  the  best  corrective 
for  over-specialization.  There  was  the  ever-deepening 
conviction  that  through  literature  the  individual  is  best 
able  to  gain  ‘  imaginative  knowledge — an  immediate, 
constant,  and  pressing  necessity  as  spiritual  nourishment 
by  which  the  higher  self  is  evolved,’  and  that  through  a 
right  use  of  literature  might  be  found  the  surest  means  of 
moral  progress. 

But  this  study  of  literature  was  in  a  chaotic  state,  and 
recognition  of  the  need  for  scientific  method  must  be 
obtained.  The  thought  of  all  the  ages,  so  far  as  it  is 
embodied  in  literature,  should  be  made  accessible  to  all, 
and  stress  should  be  laid  upon  the  understanding  of  literary 
form  as  a  first  essential  to  accuracy  of  interpretation. 
The  love  of  literature — beauty  of  thought  and  beauty  of 
expression — must,  of  course,  be  encouraged,  and  every 
possible  assistance  must  be  available  for  the  ‘  imperfectly 
literary.’  Along  lines  which  would  help  towards  such  ends 
his  whole  life  work  was  carried  out.  The  extent  to  which 
he  was  able  to  record  results  in  books,  and  the  relation  of 
his  seven  larger  works  to  the  object  he  had  in  view  is 
outlined  by  himself  in  the  Preface  to  The  Modern  Study  of 
Literature. 


EVENTIDE 


129 


It  has  always  been  my  ambition  to  make  some  con¬ 
tribution  toward  the  shaping  of  this  study  of  literature, 
which  by  tradition  is  so  miscellaneous  and  unorganized. 
Previous  works  of  mine  have  been  preliminary  studies  ; 
discussion  of  particular  principles  in  application  to  special 
literary  fields.  The  most  obvious  defect  of  the  study 
is  the  absence  of  any  instinct  for  inductive  observation, 
such  as  must  be  the  basis  for  criticism  of  any  other  kind. 
My  first  book  was  an  attempt  to  illustrate  such  scientific 
criticism  in  the  most  delightful  of  all  literary  provinces, 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare.  This  Shakespeare  as  a  Drama¬ 
tic  Artist  was,  at  a  later  period,  supplemented  by 
Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Thinker,  which  discussed  the 
philosophy  of  life  underlying  the  dramatic  stories,  and 
illustrated  the  general  principle  that  fiction  is  the 
experimental  side  of  human  philosophy,  Again  :  the 
traditional  study,  while  rightly  recognizing  the  Greek 
and  Latin  classics  as  a  foundation  for  literary  culture, 
has  in  practice  sacrificed  the  literary  for  the  linguistic 
element  in  these  classics.  My  second  book  sought  to 
introduce  The  Ancient  Classical  Drama  to  the  English 
reader,  and  to  use  this  as  a  study  of  literary  evolution. 
But  there  is  another  defect  in  our  traditional  study  of 
literature  which  is  appalling  in  its  gravity — the  omission 
of  the  Bible.  It  is  not  only  the  spiritual  loss  to  academic 
education  ;  the  literary  forms  of  the  Hebrew  classics, 
rich  in  themselves,  and  the  natural  corrective  to  the 
purely  Greek  criticism  founded  by  Aristotle,  have  been 
entirely  effaced  under  the  mediaeval  arrangement  of  the 
Bible  in  chapters  and  verses  which  is  still  retained  in 
current  versions.  My  third  work  was  on  The  Literary 
Study  of  the  Bible:  An  Account  of  the  Literary  Forms 
Represented  in  the  Sacred  Writings  ;  and,  following  this, 
twelve  years  of  my  life  were  occupied  with  editing  The 
Modern  Reader’s  Bible,  and  the  investigation  of  literary 
structure  which  this  involved.  My  last  work  was  an 
attempt  to  grasp  the  whole  field  of  literature,  not  as 
an  aggregation  of  particular  literatures,  but  in  the 
I 


130 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


conception  of  World  Literature,  as  seen  in  perspective 
from  the  English  point  of  view.  In  succession  to  these 
separate  studies  the  present  book  seeks  to  arrive  at  a 
synthetic  view  of  the  theory  and  interpretation  of 
literature. 

This  book  has  been  planned  to  give  some  account  of  the 
work  of  one  who,  together  with  a  strong  feeling  for  the 
higher  needs  of  humanity,  had  a  clear  and  ever-enlarging 
perception  of  a  progressive  means  of  meeting  them. 
Throughout  his  life  R.  G.  Moulton  devoted  all  his  powers 
to  the  attempt  to  pass  on  to  others  whatever  of  insight  he 
himself  gained,  encouraging  receptiveness,  removing 
hindrances,  and  opening  and  pointing  the  way  for  all — 
as  he  saw  it — of  a  truly  ‘  liberal  education  ’  of  mind  and 
soul.  Gladly  receiving  much  vision  of  truth  and  beauty, 
he  gave  freely  of  his  best  to  all. 


APPENDIX  I. 


SYLLABUS  OF  LECTURE  GIVEN  AT  BELPER  ON  THE  UNIVERSITY 
EXTENSION  MOVEMENT.  (See  p.  30). 

[As  far  as  possible  there  are  represented  here  the  typographical 
variations  as  they  appear  in  his  syllabus — a  matter  concerning 
which  he  was  most  particular. ] 

UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION. 

Idea  of  the  Movement  :  University  Education  for 
the  Whole  Nation  on  Voluntary  Principles. 

University  Extension  implies 

1.  Higher  Education  :  not  necessarily  in  the  sense  of 

high  subjects,  but  as  distinguished  from 

a.  School  Education,  which  is  for  the  young  : 

b.  Technical  and  Professional  Education,  which 

trains  directly  for  the  business  of  life. 
Higher  Education  looks  equally,  or  more, 
to  its  leisure. 

2.  The  teaching  (as  well  as  examining)  under  the  direction 

of  the  University. 

Higher  Education  depends  more  on  the  manner 
in  which  the  instruction  has  been  given  than  on 
the  amount  of  actual  knowledge  acquired. 

The  Idea  embodied  in  Practical  Institutions. 

The  University  Extension  Movement  is  a  Joint  Movement  of 

The  Universities  :  supplying  the  Educational 

Organization. 

The  Towns  :  „  Local  Organiza¬ 

tion  and  Funds. 


132 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


i. 


University  Extension  as  a  Method  of  Education. 

1.  Only  a  small  fraction  of  the  nation  can  go  up  to  the 
University  towns  to  obtain  the  great  educational  advantages 
of  Residence — for  the  great  masses  the  University  agencies 
must  go  out  to  the  Towns. 

2.  If  the  organization  is  to  reach  the  whole  nation  it  must 
be  such  as  will  be  applicable  to  all  classes  of  society  without 
distinction.  For  teaching  purposes  all  such  varieties  resolve 
themselves  into  two  : 

Public  Audiences  as  composite  in  character  as  the 
congregation  of  a  church  or  chapel :  for  these  the 
Movement  provides  connected  Courses  of  Lectures 
— an  advance,  educationally,  on  disconnected  lectures. 

In  each  Audience  a  nucleus  of  Students  :  for  these  are 
provided  (i)  Weekly  Exercises  on  the  subjects  of  the 
Lecture,  to  be  done  at  home  and  sent  to  the  Lecturer 
for  written  comment,  (ii)  A  second  meeting  usually 
called  the  Class,  before  or  after  the  following  Lecture, 
at  which  explanations  are  given  by  the  Lecturer,  such 
as  arise  out  of  the  Exercises  sent  in  ;  discussion  also  is 
invited,  (iii)  Certificates  by  the  University  for  the 
work  of  each  term. 

This  union  of  the  Class  for  the  Students,  including  Weekly 
Exercises  and  Certificates,  with  Lectures  for  popular 
Audiences,  is  the  distinctive  feature  of  the  movement — thus 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  University  Extension  Movement  does 
not  come  into  competition  with  organizations  for  providing 
Popular  Lectures — its  lectures  being  indeed  the  lesser  half 
of  the  operations. 

3.  If  the  scheme  is  to  be  applied  universally  the  Education 
must  be  so  arranged  that  it  can  be  taken  in  various  amounts. 
The  unit  of  the  movement  is  a  single  Term’s  course  (3 
months)  of  lectures  and  Classes  as  described  above. 


APPENDIX  I. 


133 


4.  As  large  numbers  of  the  Students  will  be  working  under 
difficulties,  it  is  especially  incumbent  on  the  movement  to 
pioneer  in  the  latest  improvements  of  educational  method. 

(a)  The  subjects  must  be  such  as  have  already  established 

their  hold  on  the  popular  mind,  not  those  of 
academic  interest  only.  .  .  . 

(b)  Every  Course  of  Lectures  should  have  its  own  text¬ 

book  :  this  is  secured  by  means  of  the  Syllabus,  a 
cheap  pamphlet  which  sketches  the  order  and  plan 
of  the  teaching,  and  refers  to  existing  books  for  the 
detailed  matter. 

(c)  Certificates  should  have  the  effect  of  assisting  the 

teacher  by  examinations,  not  of  subordinating  the 
teacher  to  examinations. 

The  University  grants  the  Certificates  for  each 
Course  upon  a  double  test  :  (1)  The  Lecturer’s 
Report  of  the  Weekly  Exercises  :  (2)  a  Special 
Examiner’s  Report  of  an  Examination  at  the 
end  of  the  Course. 

The  effect  of  this  system  is  :  (a)  The  Certificates  have  a 
unique  value  as  indicating  not  only  the  passing  an  examina¬ 
tion  but  also  a  regular  course  of  study  followed  out  under 
the  supervision  of  the  University,  (b)  Scope  is  given  to 
both  types  of  minds,  those  who  can  do  themselves  justice 
in  examinations,  and  those  who  can  do  thoughtful  and 
original  work  at  home,  (c)  The  very  questionable  principle 
of  competitive  examination  is  entirely  discarded,  (d)  The 
whole  system  will  be  seen  to  be  purely  voluntary  :  it  exercises 
influence,  not  pressure,  and  the  profit  any  student  derives 
from  it  depends  upon  himself. 

II. 

The  University  Extension  Movement  aims  at  securing, 
in  combination  with  other  agencies,  a  complete 

LADDER  OF  EDUCATION,  FROM  THE  PRIMARY  SCHOOL 

to  the  University. 

1.  The  three  kinds  of  education,  School,  Technical,  and 
Higher,  are  in  Continental  systems  under  direction  of  the 


134 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


State  and  organized  into  a  complete  scheme.  In  England 
the  State  accepts  responsibility  only  for  single  sections  of 
educational  work,  and  the  organization  of  the  national 
Education  as  a  whole  can  be  arrived  at  only  by  gradual  and 
combined  effort. 

2.  A  leading  feature  of  our  English  system  is  the  Local 
College,  as  a  centre  of  Technical  and  Higher  Education, 
such  as  those  already  springing  up  in  the  larger  towns.  .  .  . 
Colleges  may  under  certain  conditions  be  affiliated  to  Oxford 
and  Cambridge,  thereby  shortening  the  term  of  residence  in 
the  University  itself.1 

3.  The  University  Extension  Movement  does  not  enter 
into  competition  with  this  or  any  other  existing  agency, 
but  seeks  to  fill  up  the  intervals  which  existing  agencies  leave 
unsupplied  in  the  idea  of  a  complete  scheme  of  national 
education.  It  may  thus  be  described  as  a  sort  of  Floating 
University  for  the  whole  country,  each  locality  organizing 
itself  and  availing  itself  of  the  education  supplied  by  the 
movement  to  whatever  extent  its  demands  and  funds  warrant. 

III. 

University  Extension  as  a  Local  Institution. 

1.  The  movement  was  started  on  the  invitation  of  the 
Towns  to  the  Universities  :  in  the  steps  of  its  further  develop¬ 
ment  the  Towns  have  taken  at  least  an  equal  part  :  in  some 
places  it  has  already  developed  into  complete  Local  Colleges. 

2.  The  object  is  to  secure  the  establishment  in  every  town 
of  local  branches,  working  in  connexion  with  the  Universi¬ 
ties.  In  some  places  existing  local  Institutes  have  taken  up 
the  Movement  and  carried  it  on  as  a  part  of  their  own  work  : 
more  often  a  special  ‘  University  Extension  Society  ’  has 
been  formed  for  the  purpose. 

1  It  must  be  remembered  that  this  Syllabus  belongs  to  1885  ;  in  the 
intervening  years  a  number  of  these  Local  Colleges  have  matured  into 
Universities  themselves.  But  this  paragraph  is  left  as  it  was  written,  so 
as  to  mark  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  development. 


APPENDIX  I. 


135 

3.  The  points  to  be  observed  in  organizing  such  a  local 
branch  are  : 

(a)  Permanence.  It  is  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the 

whole  movement  to  leave  the  courses  to  be  got  up 
by  fresh  enterprise  each  year. 

(b)  A  popular  basis.  Where  a  special  society  is  formed, 

its  basis  should  be  wide  enough  to  encourage  the 
actual  attendants  at  Lectures  and  Classes  to  enter 
it.  The  movement  is  one  of  Self-Education  :  it 
is  part  of  its  conception  to  bring  the  masses  to 
realize  that  the  carrying  on  of  Higher  Education 
is  an  interest  of  their  own.  Care  should  be  taken 
to  avoid  anything  that  might  be  misinterpreted 
as  indicating  political  or  sectarian  bias. 

(c)  The  missionary  character  of  the  movement.  It  seeks 

not  only  to  supply  Higher  Education,  but  also  to 
stimulate  the  demand  for  it. 


APPENDIX  II. 


THE  DEPARTMENT  OF  GENERAL  LITERATURE  IN  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO. 

OFFICERS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

A.  Instructors  attached  to  the  Department  of  General 
Literature  : 

Richard  Green  Moulton,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Literary 
Theory  and  Interpretation  and  Head  of  the  Depart¬ 
ment  of  General  Literature. 

George  Carter  Howland,  A.M.,  Associate  Professor  of  the 
History  of  Literature. 

B.  Instructors  in  other  Departments  offering  courses  in 
t  his  Department.  [List  averaging  about  twenty  names :  see 
courses  mentioned  below.] 

The  Heads  and  acting  Heads  of  Department  VIII-XVI1 
compose  the  Committee  of  Management  for  Department 
XVI. 

COURSES  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

[The  following  detailed  list  is  taken  from  the  announcements 
for  the  years  1912-13  and  1913-14.  About  35  courses  would 
be  available  in  each  year.] 

I.  Courses  in  General  Literature. 

Note. — These  are  (unless  otherwise  stated)  Senior  College 
courses  ;  but  usually  students  may,  with  the  approval  of 
the  instructor,  obtain  graduate  credit  by  doing  additional 
work. 

1.  World  Literature  for  English  Readers. — This  course 
surveys  the  whole  field  of  literature  so  far  as  this  has  entered 
into  the  culture  of  the  English-speaking  peoples.  It  is 

1  All  the  Language  and  Literature  Departments. 

136 


APPENDIX  II. 


137 


designed  to  lay  a  foundation  for  intelligent  reading  in  the 
future,  partly  by  the  presentation  of  illustrative  masterpieces, 
and  partly  by  seeking  a  rational  scheme  for  selection  of  the 
‘  best  books.'  [Richard  Green  Moulton,  Ph.D.,  Professor 
of  Literary  Theory  and  Interpretation  and  Head  of  the 
Department  of  General  Literature.] 

2.  Literary  Study  of  the  (English)  Bible. — Avoiding 
questions  of  theology  and  historic  criticism  this  course  will 
elucidate  the  conception  of  the  Bible  as  one  of  the  leading 
literatures  of  the  world.  Open  to  the  Junior  Colleges. 
[Professor  Moulton.] 

3b.  Ancient  Epic  and  Tragedy  for  English  Readers. — A 

rapid  reading-course  in  Ancient  Classical  Epic  and  Tragedy, 
centring  chiefly  around  the  topic  of  the  Trojan  War. 
[Professor  Moulton.] 

5.  Dante  in  English. — Readings  in  Dante’s  works, 
expecially  The  Divine  Comedy.  [George  Carter  Howland, 
A.M.,  Associate  Professor  of  the  History  of  Literature, — -of 
the  Department  of  General  Literature.] 

6.  The  Story  of  Faust. — Goethe’s  Faust  (in  English),  in 
comparison  with  the  treatment  of  the  same  story  in  English 
and  Spanish  literature,  and  in  music.  [Associate  Professor 
Howland.] 

10.  Dramatists  of  the  Present  Day. — A  study  of  the  most 
significant  authors  and  movements  at  the  present  day  in 
continental  Europe.  [Associate  Professor  Howland.] 

11.  The  Short  Story  in  Contemporary  European  Literature. 
[Associate  Professor  Howland.] 

14.  The  Contemporary  European  Novel.— The  Principal 
living  novelists  of  Continental  Europe  will  be  studied  with 
reference  to  their  place  in  world  literature.  [Associate 
Professor  Howland.] 

18.  Seneca  :  ‘  Tragedies.’ — Three  or  four  of  the  tragedies 
will  be  studied  in  detail,  with  especial  reference  to  Seneca’s 
style  and  dramatic  art.  The  remaining  tragedies  will  be 
read  rapidly  in  translations,  with  a  study  of  their  philosophical 
content,  and  a  comparison  with  the  corresponding  Greek 
dramas  on  the  same  themes.  [Frank  Justus  Miller,  Ph.D., 


138 


RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 


LL.D.,  Professor  of  Latin,— of  the  Department  of  the  Latin 
Language  and  Literature.] 

19.  Ovid  :  ‘  Metamorphoses.’ — The  reading  will  be  accom¬ 
panied  by  a  study  of  the  use  of  classical  mythology  by 
representative  English  poets.  [Professor  Miller.] 

20.  The  Greater  French  Essayists  and  Their  Bearing  upon 
the  Essay  in  English  Literature.  [Associate  Professor 
Howland.] 

22.  Modern  Epic  Poetry. — A  study  of  the  great  epics  in 
modern  European  literatures  other  than  English.  [Associate 
Professor  Howland.] 

23.  Cervantes  and  His  Contemporaries. — Studies  in  the 
classic  Spanish  novelists.  [Associate  Professor  Howland.] 

24.  History  of  Sanskrit  Literature. — The  aim  of  this  course 
is  to  give  brief  survey  of  the  literature  of  India — a  literature 
of  no  small  intrinsic  value,  and  one  which  offers  much  that 
is  of  interest  to  the  occidental  student.  An  effort  will  be 
made  to  gain  some  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  social  and 
intellectual  conditions  under  which  this  literature  was 
produced,  and  to  form  some  conception  of  its  place  in  the 
literature  and  thought  of  the  world.  No  knowledge  of 
Sanskrit  or  Pali  is  necessary,  but  a  large  amount  of  reading 
in  translations  will  be  required.  [Walter  Eugene  Clark, 
Ph.D.,  Instructor, — -of  the  Department  of  Sanskrit  and  the 
Indo-European  Comparative  Philology.] 

25.  Ballad  and  Epic  Poetry. — The  English  ballads  will  be 
studied  in  the  complete  collections  of  Child  and  Kittredge. 
Beowulf  and  the  Iliad  will  be  read  in  translation ;  other  famous 
epics  will  be  treated  in  lectures.  [Albert  Harris  Tolman, 
Ph.D.,  Professor  of  English, — of  the  Department  of  the 
English  Language  and  Literature.] 

26.  Such  courses  as  : 

The  Psalter.  [Herbert  Lockwood  Willett,  Ph.D.,  Associate 
Professor  of  the  Old  Testament  Language  and  Literature, 
— of  the  Department  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures.] 
Ezekiel. — A  close  study  of  the  book  and  its  exilic  background. 
[Associate  Professor  Smith,  Ph.D., — of  the  Department  of 
Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures.] 


APPENDIX  II. 


139 


28.  Such  courses  as  : 

Beginnings  of  Old  Testament  Literature  and  History. 

[Associate  Professor  Willett.] 

29.  The  Literature  of  the  Early  Orient. — A  study  of  the 
rise  of  literary  forms  and  the  earliest  development  of  literary 
art  as  seen  in  Egypt,  Babylonia,  and  neighbouring  nations. 
The  earliest  literature  of  entertainment,  tales,  romances, 
poetry,  epics,  drama,  wisdom,  mortuary,  and  religious  com¬ 
positions,  scientific  treatises,  business  and  legal  documents 
will  be  taken  up,  read  in  translation,  analysed,  and  discussed. 
[James  Henry  Breasted,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Egyptology  and 
Oriental  History  ;  Director  of  Haskell  Oriental  Museum, — 
of  the  Department  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures.] 

30.  Primitive  Christian  Life  and  Literature. — General  survey 
of  the  field  of  New  Testament  study  ;  consideration  of  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament  as  an  expression  of  the  religious 
life  of  the  early  Church  ;  assigned  reading  in  the  history  of 
the  apostolic  age.  [Edgar  Johnson  Goodspeed,  D.B.,  Ph.D., 
Associate  Professor, — of  the  Department  of  Biblical  and 
Patristic  Greek.] 

31.  The  Gospel  of  Matthew  in  English. — Purpose,  sources, 
date,  and  authorship  of  the  book  ;  analysis  of  its  contents  ; 
interpretation  on  the  basis  of  the  Greek  text  and  English 
translations,  with  particular  attention  to  the  discourse 
sections.  [Ernest  De  Witt  Burton,  D.D.,  Professor  and  Head 
of  the  Department  of  New  Testament  and  Early  Christian 
Literature.] 

32.  The  Gospel  of  John  in  English. — Purpose,  sources,  date, 
and  authorship  of  the  book  ;  interpretation  on  the  basis  of 
the  English  text.  [Shirley  Jackson  Case,  D.B.,  Ph.D., 
Associate  Professor  of  New  Testament  Interpretation, — of 
the  Department  of  Biblical  and  Patristic  Greek.] 

33.  The  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians  in  English. — Historical 
situation,  including  conditions  of  Church  life  in  the  Greco- 
Roman  world  ;  analysis  of  the  letters  ;  interpretation  on  the 
basis  of  the  Greek  text  and  English  translations  ;  contribution 
of  the  letters  to  our  knowledge  of  primitive  Christianity. 
[Associate  Professor  Goodspeed.] 


140  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

34.  The  Mediaeval  Drama. — The  origins  and  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  mediaeval  religious  drama.  [John  Matthews 
Manly,  Ph.D.,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department  of  the 
English  Language  and  Literature.] 

35,  36.  History  of  the  Novel. — From  the  Renaissance  to  the 
present  day.  (2  majors.)  [Robert  Morss  Lovett,  A.B., 
Professor  of  English,— of  the  Department  of  the  English 
Language  and  Literature.] 

37.  Homer. — Rapid  reading  and  literary  study  of  the 
Iliad.  [Paul  Shorey,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Litt.D.,  Professor  and 
Head  of  the  Department  of  the  Greek  Language  and  Liter¬ 
ature.] 

38.  The  History  of  Greek  Comedy. — Detailed  study  of  the 
Knights  of  Aristophanes  ;  rapid  reading  of  representative 
fragments  of  the  Middle  and  the  New  Comedy  ;  lectures  on 
the  development  of  comedy  in  Greece.  [Henry  Washington 
Prescott,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Classical  Philology, — of  the 
Department  of  the  Greek  Language  and  Literature.] 

39.  American  Literature. — A  general  survey.  [Percy 
Holmes  Boynton,  A.M.,  Associate  Professor  of  English, — of 
the  Department  of  the  English  Language  and  Literature.] 

II.  Courses  in  Theory  of  Literature. 

Note. — These  are  graduate  courses,  but  open  to  the  Senior 
Colleges. 

40.  Foundation  Principles  of  the  Study  of  Literature. — 

The  course  is  designed  to  bring  out  how  traditional  ideas  of 
literary  study  are  modified  by  (1)  the  recognition  of  the  unity 
of  all  literature  ;  (2)  the  application  to  literature  of  modern 
conceptions  of  evolution  and  inductive  science.  It  is 
specially  recommended  for  those  who  expect  to  teach, 
whether  English  or  any  other  particular  literature ;  also  for 
Senior  College  students  who  will  not  have  the  opportunity  of 
taking  it  as  part  of  their  graduate  work.  [Professor  Moulton.] 

41.  Literary  Criticism  and  Theory  of  Interpretation. — 
After  taking  as  basis  of  its  treatment  a  distinction  between 
our  leading  types  of  criticism,  the  course  will  fall  into  two 


APPENDIX  II 


141 

parts  :  (1)  A  full  exposition  of  the  criticism  of  interpretation, 
illustrated  in  application  to  well-known  masterpieces  of 
literature ;  (2)  an  attempt  to  formulate  the  leading  problems 
of  speculative  criticism.  [Professor  Moulton.] 

42.  Studies  in  the  Grammar  of  Poetic  Art. — Familiar 
masterpieces  of  poetry  will  be  taken  up,  not  as  regards  their 
general  interest  or  position  in  literary  history,  but  with  a 
view  to  obtaining  materials  for  analysing  the  elements  of 
poetic  effect.  The  course  will  thus  be  concerned  with  such 
topics  as  plot,  movement,  and  poetic  architecture  ;  with 
imagery  and  symbolism ;  with  word-force  and  metrical 
mechanics,  so  far  as  these  last  are  of  literary  and  not  merely 
linguistic  significance.  [Professor  Moulton.] 

45.  ./Esthetics. — An  introduction  to  the  history  and  theory 
of  aesthetics.  [James  Hayden  Tufts,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor 
and  Head  of  the  Department  of  Philosophy.] 

46.  History  of  French  Criticism,  especially  in  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries.  [Edwin  Preston  Dargan,  Ph.D., 
Assistant  Professor  of  French  Literature, — of  the  Department 
of  Romance  Languages  and  Literatures.] 

(or  46.)  Le  Classicisme. — Les  oeuvres  et  la  doctrine. 
Preciosite  et  naturalisme.  Boileau,  L’ Art  poetique  (edition 
Brunetiere)  et  Les  Her  os  de  Roman  (edition  T.  F.  Crane). 
[Henri  Charles  Edouard  David,  A.M.,  Assistant  Professor  of 
French  Literature, — of  the  Department  of  Romance  Lan¬ 
guages  and  Literatures.] 

47.  Life  and  Works  of  Corneille. — Origins  of  the  classic 
drama  and  its  relation  to  the  ideas  of  Descartes.  [William 
Albert  Nitze,  Ph.D.,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department 
of  Romance  Languages  and  Literatures.] 

(or  47.)  La  reaction  contra  le  classicisme. — Constitution 
de  l’esprit  philosophique.  Les  hommes  de  lettres  philosophes. 
Roustan,  La  Philosophic  et  la  societe  frangaise  au  XV III e 
siecle.  [Assistant  Professor  David.] 

48.  The  Technique  of  the  Drama. — A  detailed  and  careful 
study  of  the  technique  of  selected  plays.  [Robert  Herrick, 
A.B.,  Professor  of  English, — of  the  Department  of  the  English 
Language  and  Literature.] 


142  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

49.  Studies  in  Romanticism  in  English  Literature  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century.— Criticism  1725-75.  [William  Darnall 
MacClintock,  A.M.,  Professor  of  English, — of  the  Department 
of  the  English  Language  and  Literature.] 

Note. — Course  60  may  be  reckoned  for  Section  II  or 
Section  III. 


III.  Courses  in  Comparative  Literature. 

Note. — These  are  graduate  courses. 

60.  Types  of  Old  French  Literature. — The  literary  types 
of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  ;  study  of  illustrative 
works.  A  reading  knowledge  of  Old  French  is  pre-requisite. 
[Professor  Nitze.] 

(or  60.)  The  Technique  of  the  Latin  Epic. — Lectures  on  the 
characteristics  and  the  development  of  the  artistic  epic  in 
Latin  literature,  with  special  reference  to  Virgil’s  JEneid. 
Parallel  readings  in  the  JEneid  (in  Latin),  and  in  the  Homeric, 
Hellenistic,  and  later  Latin  epics  (in  translation).  Short 
reports.  [Professor  Prescott.] 

61.  Germanic  Mythology. — Vorlesungen  mit  Zugrundele- 
gung  von  Mogk's  Artikel  in  Paul’s  Grundriss.  [Philip 
Schuyler  Allen,  Ph.D.,  Associate  Professor  of  German  Litera¬ 
ture, — of  the  Department  of  Germanic  Languages  and  Litera¬ 
tures.] 

62.  The  Romantic  School. — A  systematic  attempt  to  give 
an  account  of  the  development  and  gradual  differentiation 
of  the  romantic  Weltanschauung  in  the  creative  and  theoretical 
works  of  the  Romantic  School.  [Martin  Schiitze,  Ph.D., 
Associate  Professor  of  German  Literature,— of  the  Depart¬ 
ment  of  Germanic  Languages  and  Literatures.] 

63.  Wolfram’s  von  Eschenbach  *  Willehalm.’ — A  com¬ 
parative  study  of  the  poem  and  its  sources.  [Starr  Willard 
Cutting,  Ph.D.,  Professor  and  Head  of  the  Department  of 
Germanic  Languages  and  Literatures.] 

64.  The  Literary  Relations  between  England  and  Germany 
in  the  Eighteenth  Century. — The  main  subjects  treated  are 
Addison’s  Spectator  and  its  numerous  German  imitations  ; 


APPENDIX  II. 


143 


Milton’s  influence  ;  the  influence  of  English  satire  in  Ger¬ 
many  ;  the  part  Shakspere  played  in  the  old  German  drama 
and  dramatic  criticism,  especially  in  the  case  of  Lessing  and 
the  Storm  and  Stress ;  Pope,  Young,  Thompson,  and 
Dryden  ;  Ossian  and  Percy’s  Reliques  ;  the  Robinsonaden  ; 
the  imitations  of  Sterne,  Richardson,  and  Fielding  ;  the 
countercurrent  during  the  last  two  decades  of  the  century, 
especially  Burger’s  Lenore,  Schiller’s  Rduber,  and  Goethe. 
[Jacob  Harold  Heinzelmann,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  German, 
University  of  Manitoba.] 

65.  The  German  Court  Epic :  Hartmann  von  Aue. — A 

critical  reading  of  his  Iwein  with  reference  to  its  Old  French 
prototype.  [Professor  Cutting.] 

See  also  Department  XIV,  218  :  German-American 
Literature,  (a)  Indian  and  Emigrant  Fiction  ;  (b)  German- 
American  Poetry.  [Preston  Albert  Barba,  Ph.D.,  Instructor 
in  German,  Indiana  University.] 


APPENDIX  III. 


TITLES  OF  OTHER  COURSES  GIVEN  BY  PROFESSOR  MOULTON 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  ARE  AS  FOLLOWS  : 

General  Literature  :  Its  significance  in  the  Philosophy  of 
Education 
The  Story  of  Faust 

The  English  Bible  :  Its  Place  in  an  Ordinary  English 
Education 

Modem  Principles  of  the  Study  of  Literature 

Milton’s  Poetic  Art 

Milton’s  Paradise  Lost 

Miltonic  Poetry  and  Biblical  Prophecy 

Dante  and  Milton 

Biblical  Interpretation 

Homer  and  William  Morris 

Homer  and  Ancient  Tragedy 

Ancient  Epic  and  Tragedy  for  English  Readers 

The  Odyssey  and  the  Aineid 

From  Homer  to  William  Morris 

William  Morris  as  a  Modem  Homer 

The  Poetry  of  William  Morris 

The  Ancient  Classical  Drama  for  Modem  English  Students 

The  Writings  of  W’illiam  Morris  as  a  Study  of  Epic  Poetry 

Homer  and  Virgil  for  English  Readers 

The  New  Study  of  Literature 

Imagery  and  Symbolism 

Wisdom  Literature 

Masterpieces  of  World  Literature  :  An  Introduction  to 
General  Reading 

A  Reading  Course  in  the  Ancient  Classical  Drama 
Biblical  Prophecy  as  a  branch  of  World  Literature 


144 


APPENDIX  III. 


145 


The  Poetry  and  Philosophy  of  Milton’s  Paradise  Lost 
The  Philosophy  of  Shakespeare 
Shakespeare  and  the  Ancient  Classical  Drama 
The  Lighter  Plays  of  Shakespeare 

Spenser’s  Faerie  Queene :  The  Meeting  Ground  of  Classic 
and  Romantic 


K 


BOOKS  BY  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON. 


Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist:  A  Popular  Illustration  of 
the  Principles  of  Scientific  Criticism.  Third  ed.  Published 
by  the  Oxford  LTniversity  Press  (price  in  England,  8/6 
net  ;  in  America,  $2.85). 

The  Ancient  Classical  Drama :  A  Study  in  Literary  Evolution. 
Intended  for  English  Readers.  Second  ed.  Published  by 
the  Oxford  University  Press  (price  in  England,  7/6  net  ; 
in  America,  $2.50). 

Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Thinker : 1  An  Illustration  of 
Fiction  as  the  Experimental  Side  of  Philosophy.  Pub¬ 
lished  by  Macmillan  (price  in  America,  $2.00 ;  in 
England,  8/6  net). 

The  Literary  Study  of  the  Bible:  An  Account  of  the  Leading 
Forms  of  Literature  Represented  in  the  Sacred  Writings. 
Second  ed.  ;  in  America  :  published  by  D.  C.  Heath  & 
Co.,  price  $2.80  ;  in  England  :  published  by  George  G. 
Harrap  &  Co.,  price  10/6  net. 

A  Short  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Bible.  Published 
by  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.  (price  in  America,  $1.68  ;  in 
England,  7/6  net). 

The  Modern  Reader’s  Bible:  Books  of  the  Bible  (including 
three  books  of  the  Apocrypha),  edited  in  full  literary 
structure  :  with  copious  introductions  and  notes. 
Issued  in  two  different  forms  : 

(1)  Complete  in  one  volume  (1,733  pages),  published  by 
Macmillan  (price  in  America  :  Cloth  $2. 50,  leather 
$4.50,  full  limp  Morocco  87.50,  with  coloured  illus¬ 
trations  $5.00,  full  limp  Morocco,  divinity  style 
$8.50  ;  and  in  England,  cloth  15/-  net). 

1  Originally  published  under  the  title  The  Moral  System  of 
Shakespeare. 


146 


BOOKS  BY  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON  147 


(2)  In  twenty-one  small  volumes,  published  by  Mac¬ 
millan  ;  volumes  sold  separately  ;  Genesis,  Exodus 
— with  Leviticus  and  Numbers,  Deuteronomy,  The 
Judges — with  Joshua  and  Samuel  (in  part).  The 
Kings — with  Samuel  (in  part),  The  Chronicles — with 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  The  Psalms  and  Lamentations 
(two  volumes),  Biblical  Idylls  (one  volume,  contain¬ 
ing  Solomon’s  Song,  Ruth,  Esther,  Tobit),  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  Daniel  and  the  Minor  Prophets, 
Proverbs,  Ecclesiasticus,  Ecclesiastes  and  Wisdom 
of  Solomon,  Job,  St.  Matthew— with  St.  Mark  and 
the  General  Epistles,  St.  Luke  and  St.  Paul  (two 
volumes,  containing  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke,  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  with  the  Pauhne  Epistles,  each 
inserted  at  its  proper  place  in  the  narrative),  St. 
John  (the  Gospel,  Epistles,  and  Revelation).  (Price 
in  America:  Cloth  80  cents  per  vol.,  leather  $1.50 
per  vol.,  special  sets  cloth  $16.00,  special  sets 
leather  $30.00  ;  price  in  England :  Cloth  3/6  net 
per  vol.) 

Three  additional  small  volumes,  mainly  intended  for 
young  people — Bible  Stories  (Old  Testament),  Bible 
Stories  (New  Testament),  Masterpiece  of  Biblical 
Literature  (prices  in  America  :  Cloth  80  cents  per 
vol.,  leather  $1.50  per  vol.;  price  in  England: 
Cloth  3/6  net  per  vol.,  cheap  edition  cloth — Old 
Testament  Stories  2/6,  New  Testament  Stories  2/6). 

How  to  Read  the  Bible.  Incorporating  The  Bible  at  a 
Single  View.  Twenty-fifth  and  Final  Volume  of  ‘  The 
Modern  Reader’s  Bible.’  (Price  in  America  :  Cloth 
80  cents  ;  in  England  3/6  net.) 

The  Modern  Reader’s  Bible  for  Schools.  A  variation  of  the 
main  work,  abridged  and  specially  designed  for  use  in 
educational  institutions,  elementary  or  advanced.  Two 
volumes,  published  by  Macmillan  :  The  Old  Testament 
(price  in  America,  $2.50  ;  in  England,  10/6  net),  The 
New  Testament  (price  in  America  :  Cloth  $2.25 ;  in 
England,  10/6  net). 


148  RICHARD  GREEN  MOULTON 

World  Literature:  and  Its  Place  in  General  Culture.  Pub¬ 
lished  by  Macmillan  (price  in  America,  $2 ;  in 
England,  8/6  net). 

The  Modern  Study  of  Literature :  An  Introduction  to  Literary 
Theory  and  Interpretation.  Published  by  The 
University  of  Chicago  Press  (price  in  America,  $3  ;  in 
England  [Agents  :  The  Cambridge  University  Press], 
15/-  net). 


» 


» 


Date  due 


925.742 


M927M 


481855 


